Overall around the world abortion rates fell in the nine-year period from 1995 through 2003, the last year for which statistics reliably exist.

We would hope that they have fallen further since then, but there is no way to know.

In the studied period, the estimated number of abortions worldwide fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, or a decline of about 10 percent.

No matter how you stand on the abortion-rights issue, we'd imagine you would agree both that the decline is good and that the number of abortions is still far too high.

Only a small percentage of these abortions occur in the United States, most occur in so-called Third World nations, where health care is iffy, at best. The question is, how can the number of abortions be reduced? That is one of the answers the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute is seeking.

It seems to us there are really only two ways to reduce abortions. One is to convince women not to have them and the other is to improve the delivery of contraceptives. It may make some feel better to ban abortion, but it isn't going to actually stop it, particularly in the parts of the world where it occurs the most.

In those poor countries, or where it is heavily restricted often comes the double tragedy: dead and maimed woman and-or children. An estimated 70,000 women are killed each year by botched abortions and millions more \— both women and children are forever damaged.

Often these abortions are done by traditional "healers" who give the women dangerous herbs. Sometimes they are done by back-street doctors whose training is strictly on the job.

So how can we reduce both the number of abortions and injured women?

The preferred way would be convincing them, but that takes education and time.

The quick way and thus the best way is through making contraceptives available to the millions of women around the world who do not how have access to them. If we could do that we could reduce the number of abortions done overnight in the figurative sense.

When pregnancy is not wanted it should be avoided and often women, especially in Third World countries, do not have much say in this matter.

We could alleviate much human suffering and many abortions by finding a way to supply contraceptives to these parts of the world. We should go to work on it.