This doesn't surprise me at all. Many things have been outlawed over the years that are - or should be - moral rather than legal issues, and the rate at which the activities have occurred does not change unless and until the
societal attitude changes, rather than legal strictures.
With abortion in particular, the moral component is tied up with religious and cultural attitudes; religions object to abortion on moral grounds, because of religious injunctions to "be fruitful and multiply", as well as strictures against murder, and in religions with beliefs in the evolution of the soul, abortion is considered to prevent such evolution. Cultural attitudes can vary widely, and are often tied in with religious objections; in addition to those, cultures which value the birth of one gender over the other (generally boys over girls) have a much higher rate of abortion for the other gender, regardless of existing laws (religious or otherwise).
Poverty in developing countries also leads to abortion - as difficult as abortions are to afford from some very poor families, the children who have already survived infancy must be fed so they can provide for their parents' old age - but contraception is seen as infringing on a man's manhood - a strong, masculine man engenders many children, and contraception prevents that; abortion, on the other hand, does not reflect on a man's ability to sire children.
Other cultural and religious attitudes also affect abortion rates, regardless of the legality of abortion in that area, as can be seen by some of the comments
here:
Most devout Hindus object to the practice of abortion. Although you will not find them in Pro-life marches (reproduction is a private issue), they do not practice abortion unless the mother's health is threatened and all other avenues have been explored.
The following excerpt is taken from a book on Hinduism called Dancing With Siva written by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, a member of the Parliament of the World's Religions and a leading authority on contemporary Hinduism: abortion: The deliberate termination of pregnancy. From the earliest times, Hindu tradition and scriptures condemn the practice, except when the mother's life is in danger. It is considered an act against rita and ahimsa. Hindu mysticism teaches that the fetus is a living, conscious person, needing and deserving protection (a Rig Vedic hymn [7.36.9, RvP, 2469] begs for protection of fetuses). The Kaushitaki Upanishad (3.1 UpR, 774) describes abortion as equivalent to killing one's parents.
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...most poor women in India have very little voice in their own families and may feel pressured to make such a horrible choice to allow her girl babies to die, or to abort them before birth. Girl babies are seen as a burden, but this attitude has only come about in modern times (the last 500 years or so).
Judaism, in contrast, has always allowed abortion if the life of the mother was in danger - although "allowed" and "encouraged" are two different things; "be fruitful and multiply" applies to Jews as well as Christians - but remember, as you read this, that these laws were written at a time (4000 years ago) when an infant that survived birth without a mother would likely die, but a mother who survived childbirth with a dead infant could potentially have more children - and given the infant mortality rate at the time, a live adult was worth more, culturally, than a live infant - in addition, the fetus was considered to be part of the mother's body until the head was fully extruded during birth, rather than a separate entity; at least, that's the way it was explained to me by a rabbi some years ago in an adult education course I took at the synagogue I belonged to at the time.
Here is some of the interpretation of Talmudic discussion about this issue:
To begin to make his case, Feldman points out that there is no Commandment reading "Thou shalt not kill": rather, the Commandment reads "Thou shalt not murder." In Judaism (and elsewhere, of course) killing in self-defense is allowed. There are a number of categories of allowable killing in self-defense - including the category "of
rodef, the aggressor, who may be killed if that is the only way to stop his pursuit or aggression of a third party." The Talmud considers treating the fetus as a
rodef - specifically, "an aggressor against its mother, and making that the reason why abortion to save the mother's life is permitted." But
the Talmud proceeds to reject that reasoning on the obvious grounds that the fetus is not yet of responsible age to deliberately forfeit its protection against being murdered [i.e., by consciously choosing to act as an aggressor, and thereby loosing its protection against killing]. The only valid grounds for permitting even therapeutic abortion is that murder is not involved because the fetus is not yet a human person [ftn. 1: Sanhedrin 72b: David Feldman Birth Control in Jewish Law (New York: New York University Press, 1968), chaps. 14 and 15.] Killing is admittedly involved, but not murder. Killing is the taking of life of, say, an animal or a chicken, or of a human who forfeits his protection by an act of aggression. (81)
<snip>
the abortion question in talmudic law revolves around the legal status of the embryo. For this the Talmud has a phrase, ubbar yerekh immo, which phrase is a counterpart of the Latin pars viscerum matris. That is, the fetus is deemed "a part of its mother," rather than an independent entity. This designation says nothing about the morality of abortion; rather, it defines ownership, for example, in the case of an embryo found in a purchased animal. As intrinsic to its mother's body, it belongs to the buyer. In the religious conversion of a pregnant woman, her unborn child is automatically included and requires no further ceremony. Nor does it have power of acquisition; gifts made on its behalf are not binding. These and similar points mean only that the fetus has no "juridical personality," but say nothing about the right of abortion. This turns rather on whether feticide is or is not homicide. (81-82)
Other religions have different viewpoints, often based on the conditions at the time the religious laws were written - involving, to a large degree, cultural attitudes toward procreation and contraception. Cultures that were more free about sexual activity tended, in general, to be more free about contraception as well - not always, but often.
Socioeconomic factors enter into this as well - if you cannot afford to raise a child, and contraception is forbidden or unavailable for whatever reason, abortion may be the only possible choice - or at least the only available one. In the past, families had many children because they were needed to work, to support the family - and because disease and accident claimed so many before adulthood. As that changes in developing countries, the population skyrockets - as it did in the US in the last century - until the cultural attitudes toward family size change, if they ever do. And again, religious values about procreation continue to play a role here as well.
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not a big fan of abortion, especially in cases where contraception is easily available and affordable, as I see a significant moral difference between
preventing conception and
ending conception once it has occurred.
However, I do think that the decision about whether to continue or end a pregnancy should be up to the people personally involved - not to people who think it is
wrong, no matter what, who talk women out of abortions, throw them a baby shower and then leave them on their own to raise unwanted children; I see too of those many kids where I teach middle school to believe that such actions are in the best interest of the child (or the parent, for that matter). Either commit to raising the child(ren) whose abortion(s) you just prevented, or butt out - I find anything else to be morally irresponsible.
