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 Barbados Before getting the medical procedure, the woman is required to receive counseling. A medical practitioner must perform the abortion services, and after 12 weeks, they must do so in a government-approved hospital. In 1983, the Barbados parliament passed the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, decriminalizing abortion and giving women access to legal and safe abortion care. Billie Miller, the first woman to serve as minister of health in Barbados, campaigned for seven years to encourage her colleagues to decriminalize medical care for women. Passage of this new law made Barbados the first English-speaking country in the Caribbean to decriminalize abortion.