Enter hypothetical abortion types and quantities to see the best available per-abortion risk benchmarks and a modeled chance of at least one named outcome across the mix.
Formal or quality-care reference
Estimated chance of at least one serious complication in published formal- or quality-care cohorts
Death risk
The all-legal-care benchmark and the gestational-stage proxy answer different questions. Neither predicts whether a future abortion will occur in a safe setting.
Overall U.S. legal-care benchmark (2013-2021)
Population benchmarkHistorical U.S. gestational-stage proxy (all methods, 1998-2010)
Modeled proxyOther possible outcomes
Each card is calculated separately. These outcomes can overlap, so their percentages must not be added together.
Additional treatment or intervention
Continuing pregnancy
Infection
Hemorrhage requiring transfusion
Cervical injury
Uterine perforation or rupture
Separate WHO care-setting context
These two population figures describe different care settings and are not endpoints of one range. They are invariant to the methods selected and are never combined with selected-method estimates.
Safe abortion
Regions where unsafe abortions are common
Long-term fertility
Direct decrease in future fertility
How each entered type was handled
Published benchmarks, modeled combinations, and evidence gaps stay labeled separately.
Important limits
- The combined estimates assume repeated events are independent and that each future abortion resembles the source population for its selected evidence band.
- Gestational age, care setting, individual health, provider experience, medication source and quality, and access to follow-up can materially change risk.
- Differences between method rows are not clean method comparisons when the source gestational-age ranges differ.
- Range endpoints and upper or lower bounds are not equally likely values or confidence intervals unless the nearby text explicitly says they are.
- A partial estimate covers only the entered abortions with compatible data. It is not a full-mix estimate.
- Self-managed medication abortion with quality-assured medicines and appropriate information is not automatically an unsafe abortion.
These educational population estimates cannot predict an individual outcome or replace advice from a qualified clinician who knows the pregnancy timing and medical context.
Methodology and sources
For each named outcome, the calculator starts with a published point, range, or upper bound matched as closely as possible to the selected abortion type and evidence timing. It estimates the chance of at least one occurrence across repeated abortions with 1 - product(1 - per-abortion risk). This is an independence approximation, not an observed repeated-abortion cohort result.
The formal or quality-care estimates use clinical cohorts that recorded real complications. They are not restricted to abortions that later proved uncomplicated. If one selected type lacks a compatible value, the calculator labels the combined result partial or not estimable rather than treating the missing risk as zero. Method and pregnancy stage are grouped, so method rows are not clean head-to-head comparisons.
Key evidence
- CDC: Abortion Surveillance – United States, 2022
- Zane and colleagues: gestational-age-stratified US abortion mortality
- Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: Best practice in abortion care
- National Academies: The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States
- National Academies: long-term health effects and future fertility
- Cleland and colleagues: medication-abortion safety cohort
- Upadhyay and colleagues: complications after abortion in a California claims cohort
- White and colleagues: first-trimester aspiration-abortion complications
- Frick and colleagues: second-trimester D&E complications
- Sonalkar and colleagues: later D&E and induction outcomes
- Lal, Kominiarek, and Sprawka (2014): midtrimester induction and D&E complications
- World Health Organization: Abortion fact sheet, with separate safe-abortion and regions-where-unsafe-abortions-are-common population context
- World Health Organization recommendation against sharp D&C
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Abortion Care
- Prospective cohort study of induced abortion and subsequent fertility
Frequently asked questions
Are complication rates zero when abortion care is safe?
No. Formal or quality-care studies include real complications, so the estimates are not complication-free best-case rates. The chance can still be low, but type and count alone cannot predict one person’s care setting, health, or exact gestational stage.
Does abortion type or count provide a personal infertility percentage?
Formal-care abortion has not been shown to increase infertility. Type and count alone do not support a personal infertility percentage. If an infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, uterine injury, or another fertility-relevant complication occurs, the effect needs individual assessment.
Why are the WHO mortality figures shown separately?
WHO’s safe-care figure and unsafe-common-region figure describe different populations and care settings. They are not endpoints of one range, are not determined by the abortion types entered, and are not combined with the selected-method estimates.
What does an across-count risk mean?
For a named outcome, it is a mathematical estimate of at least one occurrence across the entered abortions, assuming independent procedures with the same per-abortion rate. It is not an observed repeated-abortion cohort result, and missing method evidence is not treated as zero.
What does the sharp D&C choice mean?
It represents sharp dilation and curettage, not vacuum aspiration or suction D&C. Comparable modern outcome rates are missing for this method, so relevant combined results are labeled incomplete rather than assuming zero risk.