Comparative Study of Therapeutic Abortion Permissions in Central Clinical Department of Tehran Legal Medicine Organization before and after Approval of Law on Abortion in Iran

In Iran before 2003 and approval of therapeutic abortion law in parliament there was severe restriction in abortion permissions and at that time, after presenting "The Guidelines for Therapeutic Abortion" by legal medicine organization of Iran (from now on known as LMO) presented in 2003 and finally, Islamic consultative assembly voted to approve the indications determined by LMO in 2005. In this study all cases referred to the clinical examination department of legal medicine organization in Tehran central region to get therapeutic abortion permission during one year before approval of therapeutic abortion law (first study from June 1999 to the end of May 2000) and after that (second study from early October 2006 to the end of September 2007), who could get this permission were considered accurately. Information needed to perform this study collected via completion of pre-designated forms and analyzed with SPSS software and the results compared in these two groups. In the second study in 85.36% of cases, fetal disorders and in 14.63%, maternal diseases and in the first study just 126 permission were issued, with 17% fetal disorders (major Thalassemia was the only considered case at that time) and 83% maternal indications were the reason to issue permission for abortion. In the second study the major fetal and maternal indications were: anencephaly and cardiovascular problems. The 2nd study shows that in 202 cases (35.19%), abortion permission was issued after confirmation of three specialists (cases which were forecasted in the Predetermined Abortion Indications List). This study shows that in spite of all efforts made so far to present legal approaches for abortion, it is not still time to stop working on the issue and perhaps some other diseases should be added to the mentioned list in future; but this would definitely needs joint cooperation of different authorities, governmental and judicial organization.