Abortion which midwives usually worked were relatively safe. In addition, some commentators have written that, despite improved medical procedures, the period from the 1930s until legalization also saw more zealous enforcement of anti-abortion laws, and concomitantly an increasing control of abortion providers by organized crime. Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935) and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935 Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth
Abortion in Switzerland public health insurance system. Persons performing illegal abortions are liable for prosecution if caught and as such subject to a payment of a fine or imprisonment of up to five years. A pregnant woman who procures the illegal abortion of her unborn child is also subject to a payment of a fine or imprisonment of up to three years if caught. Up until 2002, legal abortion was technically available in Switzerland only with restrictive medical indications. A constitutional amendment to legalise abortion in the first trimester had been narrowly defeated in a . However, in and , initiatives for constitutional