Table 3

Frequencies of requests through Women on Web (WoW) for Italy, Argentina, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, including COVID-19-related requests, per month, from 18 March 2020 to 4 May 2020

ParameterItalyArgentinaMalaysiaUAE
Population* (millions)60.545.232.79.9
Abortion law*On request

  • Parental authorisation/notification required

To preserve health†

  • Permitted in cases of rape

To preserve health

  • Law explicitly includes mental health

To save the woman’s life

  • Permitted in cases of fetal impairment

  • Spousal authorisation required

  • Parental authorisation/notification required

Requests (%=calculated by row)
18 March 2020–4 May 2020
(n=559) (n (%))		177 (30.7)124 (22.2)81 (14.5)177 (31.7)
COVID-19-related=Yes (%=column)
18 March 2020–4 May 2020
(n=361) (n (%))		117 (66.5)68 (55.3)41 (51.9)75 (44.4)
OR (95% CI)Reference0.623 (0.388 to 1.001)0.544 (0.317 to 0.935)0.402 (0.260 to 0.622)

  • *Abortion law.28 Population.29

  • †The abortion law recently changed in Argentina and now allows abortions until 14 weeks ‘on request’.30 The abortion law during the time of collecting the data was used for this study.

  • CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; UAE, United Arab Emirates.