The 1999 “Reproductive Health Survey, Georgia” indicates that Georgia has a very high rate of legal abortion and low use of modern contraception. (A second survey will be conducted in 2005.) To explore contributing causes and factors and to develop critical recommendations for the Government of Georgia and health and population donor organizations, the Open Society Institute’s Network Public Health Programs sponsored, in collaboration with the Open Society Georgia Foundation, a report on Abortion and Contraception in Georgia and Kazakhstan in 2004. Key Findings While half of all Georgian women consider abortion a health risk, nearly 80 percent feel women should have the right to decide about her pregnancy, including the option of abortion. Some reasons for the high abortion rate in Georgia are: • A long reliance on abortion as birth control in the Soviet Union due to isolation from the development of modern, safe, and effective contraception elsewhere in the world; • An inadequate supply of government funded contraceptives due to high costs; • Attitudes and practices of the medical profession that favor abortion; • A health-care system that favors curative, high-level institutional care and procedures over a preventive health approach that includes family planning at the primary care level. • Inadequate attention given to providing accessible, affordable contraception through public and private sector points of service and in remote communities; • A lack of scientifically accurate public information and discussion of modern methods of contraception; and • A lack of reproductive health counseling and contraceptive methods at primary care levels.