The Global Abortion Policies Database builds upon the Population Division’s previous work in monitoring the legal grounds for abortion as reflected in national laws and policies over the past three decades. This work has been carried out as part of the Division’s monitoring of population policies. The Division’s seminal work on this topic, “Abortion Policies: A Global Review”, was published as a three-volume set in 2001 and 2002. The new Database provides information on abortion laws and policies for 197 countries (including 193 Member States, 2 Observer States and 2 non-member States of the United Nations). Information presented in the Database has been gathered using a policy questionnaire, which was rigorously cross-checked by public health and legal experts and sent to countries for review. The Database provides information on a broad range of policy domains: legal grounds and related gestational limits; authorization and service-delivery requirements; regulations concerning who can provide abortion services and where, when, and how such services are permitted; and, criminal penalties for women, health-care providers and others. The Database also contains archives of completed questionnaires and supporting legal and policy documents for all countries, as well as data on selected contextual indicators related to women’s empowerment, reproductive health and development. The current version of the Database refers to 2017. The Database will be updated at regular intervals in the future. All information on abortion laws and policies contained in the Database, as well as the archives of questionnaires and source documents, are available for download.