Here's a link to a new Guttmacher-WHO study on worldwide abortion rates in the most recent issue of the Lancet.  (And here's the NY Times story on the same.)  According to the study (via the NY Times):

abortionrates are similar in countries where it is legal and thosewhere it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little todeter women seeking it.      Moreover, the researchers foundthat abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerousin countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. ... InEastern Europe, where contraceptive choices have broadened since thefall of Communism, the study found that abortion rates have decreasedby 50 percent, although they are still relatively high compared withthose in Western Europe. . . .In Uganda, where abortion is illegal andsex education programs focusonly on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 per 1,000 womenin 2003, more than twice the rate in the United States, 21 per 1,000 inthat year. The lowest rate, 12 per 1,000, was in Western Europe, withlegal abortion and widely available contraception.

More thoughts on this over at the Mirror of Justice.