A forced abortion may occur when the perpetrator causes abortion by force, threat or coercion, or by taking advantage of a situation where a pregnant individual is unable to give consent, or when valid consent is in question due to duress. This may also include the instances when the conduct was neither justified by medical or hospital treatment. Like forced sterilization, forced abortion may include a physical invasion of female reproductive organs.
Nazi Germany
During World War II, abortion policy in Nazi Germany varied depending on the people, group, and territory the policy was directed at. The commonality between policies was its purpose in promoting the birth rate and population of the putative "Aryan race" and minimizing the population of others (such as Slavs), and those deemed a burden on German society such as the children of disabled and mentally ill persons. It has been categorized as a part of Nazi Germany's "systematic program of genocide, aimed at the destruction of foreign nations and ethnic groups".
People's Republic of China
Forced abortions associated with administration of the one-child policy have occurred in the People's Republic of China; they are a violation of Chinese law and are not official policy. They result from government pressure on local officials who, in turn, employ strong-arm tactics on pregnant mothers. On September 29, 1997, a bill was introduced in the United States Congress titled Forced Abortion Condemnation Act, that sought to "condemn those officials of the Chinese Communist Party, the government of the People's Republic of China and other persons who are involved in the enforcement of forced abortions by preventing such persons from entering or remaining in the United States". In June 2012 Feng Jianmei was forcibly made to abort her 7 month old fetus after not paying a fine for breaking the one-child policy. Her case was widely discussed on the internet in China to general revulsion after photos of the stillborn baby were posted online. A fortnight after the forced abortion she continued to be harassed by local authorities in Shanxi Province. On July 5, the European Parliament passed a resolution saying it "strongly condemns" both Feng's case specifically and forced abortions in general "especially in the context of the one-child policy".
Part of the work of the activist "barefoot lawyer" Chen Guangcheng also concerned excesses of this nature. By 2012, disagreement with forced abortion was being expressed by the public in China, thought to be fuelling pressure to repeal the one-child policy. After the shift to a two-child policy in January 2016, the practice was reported in 2020 to still occur through intimidation of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang leading to the US government imposing sanctions on officials in response.
North Korean refugees repatriated from China
Forced abortions and infanticide are used as a form of punishment in prison camps. The North Korean regime banned pregnancy in its camps in the 1980s. China returns all illegal immigrants from North Korea which usually imprisons them in a short-term facility. Many North Korean defectors assert that forced abortions and infanticide are common in these prisons. The majority of the prisoners held in the Chinese detention centers are women. Repatriated North Koreans are subject to forced abortions regardless of perceived crimes. North Korean police's efforts are to prevent North Korean women from having ethnically mixed children with Han Chinese men. Medical care was not provided to North Korean women who underwent forced abortions.
United Kingdom
On June 21, 2019, the UK Court of Protection ordered a disabled woman to have an abortion against her will. The woman had a moderate mood disorder and learning disability and under the care of an NHS trust, which argued that she was mentally incompetent and that having a child would worsen her mental health. Justice Nathalie Lieven subsequently approved the forced abortion under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 despite the wishes of herself and her mother. The decision was criticized by the Catholic Church, the Disability Rights Commission, and numerous anti-abortion activist groups such as Life and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. The case was subsequently overturned by the Court of Appeal.