 The result was a reliance on abortion as the primary method of family planning.Concerned with the high rate of illegal abortions, in 1982 the government issued a decree allowing abortions for health reasons to be performed through the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy.The government continued to extend the circumstances under which legal abortions were available, and on 31 December 1987 it issued another decree setting out a broad range of non-medical indications for abortions performed on request through the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy.