Guyana has the most lib­er­al abor­tion laws of the 15 Cari­com mem­ber states and five as­so­ciate na­tions in the re­gion. In that coun­try sev­en sit­u­a­tions are cit­ed where abor­tion is le­gal. This in­for­ma­tion is avail­able on the Web sites of the Unit­ed Na­tions and pro-choice group, Ad­vo­cates for Safe Par­ent­hood: Im­prov­ing Re­pro­duc­tive Eq­ui­ty (AS­PIRE). In ad­di­tion to sav­ing a woman's life, abor­tion is al­lowed in Guyana to pre­serve phys­i­cal and men­tal health, for eco­nom­ic and so­cial rea­sons, rape and in­cest and foetal im­pair­ment, the sites add. In those cir­cum­stances ter­mi­na­tion of preg­nan­cy was avail­able on re­quest, it was stat­ed. In Bar­ba­dos, the law al­lows abor­tions for all of those sit­u­a­tions but not on re­quest, it was added. On Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, raised the is­sue of le­gal­is­ing abor­tion at a con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy. She ex­pressed con­cern about the fre­quen­cy of dan­ger­ous "back­street" abor­tions in T&T.

Last Sat­ur­day, Ja­maica's Glean­er news­pa­per re­port­ed that a stom­ach-ul­cer drug was be­ing sold wide­ly on the black mar­ket as an abor­tion pill. The ar­ti­cle said the Ja­maican Abor­tion Pol­i­cy Re­view Ad­vi­so­ry Group had done a six-month study which showed hun­dreds of women were hos­pi­talised from com­pli­ca­tions of at-home abor­tions. While T&T laws in­di­cate that "un­law­ful" abor­tion is il­le­gal, there is no de­f­i­n­i­tion of law­ful abor­tion in the leg­is­la­tion.

The T&T Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Sec­tion 56 states: "Every woman, be­ing with child, who, with in­tent to pro­cure her own mis­car­riage, un­law­ful­ly ad­min­is­ters to her­self any poi­son or oth­er nox­ious thing, or un­law­ful­ly us­es any in­stru­ment or oth­er means, what­so­ev­er, with the like in­tent, and any per­son who, with in­tent to pro­cure the mis­car­riage of any woman, whether she is or is not with child, un­law­ful­ly ad­min­is­ters to her or caus­es to be tak­en by her any poi­son or oth­er nox­ious thing, or un­law­ful­ly us­es any in­stru­ment or oth­er means what­so­ev­er with the like in­tent, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for four years.

In Ja­maica, abor­tion laws are sim­i­lar to T&T's. The Ja­maican Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Sec­tion 72, reads the same, ex­cept that the crime is con­sid­ered a felony and pun­ish­able by pos­si­ble life im­pris­on­ment. Oth­er Caribbean na­tions with laws sim­i­lar to T&T and Ja­maica are British Vir­gin Is­lands, Mon­ster­rat and St Kitts and Nevis. In Be­lize, Bermu­da and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, abor­tions are per­mit­ted for so­cial and eco­nom­ic rea­sons. In An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca, an abor­tion can on­ly be per­formed to save a woman's life.