Havana/In a country where fewer and fewer children are being born, abortions are about to equal the number of births. Cuba registered 64,850 abortions during 2025, compared to 68,064 live births. The proportion is 94.8 abortions per 100 births, the highest since 1986, according to the new Health Statistical Yearbook of the Ministry of Public Health. The official figures appear in the midst of a prolonged shortage of contraceptives, which forces many women to resort to the informal market or to products sent to them by their relatives from abroad.
The situation worsens a demographic crisis of exceptional dimensions in Latin America. Cuba lost 313,414 inhabitants during 2025, around 3.2% of its population, and closed the year with just 9.4 million residents. Although emigration continues to be the main cause of this loss, the deaths (136,214 people) births practically doubled. The country is not only emptied because of those who leave, but also because many more Cubans die than arrive in the world.
In 2025, 3,294 fewer children were born than the previous year, which is why the Government has insisted on the need to stimulate birth rates. On the other hand, condoms, contraceptive pills and other family planning methods have been in short supply in state pharmacies for years, but this has not stopped the collapse in births: abortions remain practically at the same figures as in 2024, while their proportion to births continues to increase.
In March 2026, the official press warned of an increase in sexually transmitted infections in Sancti Spíritus, especially among young people.
The shortage is not a recent complaint either. Already in 2023, Dr. Deglis Luciano, head of the Sexually Transmitted Infections Program in Guantanamo, recognized that lack of condomspills and injections was contributing to unwanted pregnancies and an increase in sexual infections. At that time, an emergency contraceptive pill could cost between 700 and 900 pesos in the informal market. Currently, on shopping pages like Revolico, it is advertised for up to 1,800 pesos.
In March 2026, the official press warned of an increase in sexually transmitted infections in Sancti Spíritus, especially among young people, and pointed out the absence of condoms in the health system as one of the factors that aggravated the situation. The shortage thus affects both the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and protection against HIV and other diseases.
The Government tries to respond with new provisions. In May of this year the Resolution 174/2025 of the Ministry of Health, which orders prioritizing the delivery of contraceptives to adolescents, especially in the territories with the highest fertility at those ages. However, a paper standard does not in itself guarantee that products reach pharmacies and clinics. The authorities themselves have recognized the need to resort to international organizations to reinforce the supply.
The lack of options to prevent pregnancy constitutes, therefore, a problem that transcends the economic difficulties of each family.
The crisis has also exposed the existence of clandestine abortions, despite the fact that the procedure is legal and free in Cuban hospitals. In April 2024, the director of the Hijas de Galicia Hospital, in Havana, warned that four women had arrived at the guard room with serious hemorrhages. after terminating their pregnancies outside health institutions. The doctor denounced the irregular use of misoprostol, a drug used to cause abortions, and the existence of people who charged for performing these procedures. There are no public figures that allow us to know the current magnitude of these practices.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which has supplied contraceptives to Cuba through cooperation programs, also recognizes that unwanted pregnancies and high abortion rates persist, particularly among young women. The lack of options to prevent pregnancy constitutes, therefore, a problem that transcends the economic difficulties of each family.
Despite this, the new health yearbook continues to use data from 2019 to report on contraceptive use by province. It does not offer updated figures on how many women use each method, which ones have stopped receiving them, or how their availability has evolved during the harshest years of the crisis. The emptiness is striking in a publication that does accurately record pregnancy interruptions.
Far from recovering after the pandemic, the program continues to decline and presents its lowest figure since 1971
The deterioration of reproductive health care is also reflected in the collapse of cytological tests, used to detect lesions that can become cervical cancer. According to the same yearbook, women with updated cytology went from 871,196 in 2018 to only 197,457 in 2025, a drop of 77.3%. Far from recovering after the pandemic, the program continues to decline and presents its lowest figure since 1971.
The situation is particularly worrying among women aged 40 or over, a group for which the Ministry records only 40.4 updated cytology tests per 1,000 women. At the same time, deaths from cervical cancer increased from 479 in 2024 to 506 in 2025. Both trends highlight the need to examine what is happening with prevention and early diagnosis.
In 2025, Cuba began, with international support, the vaccination of girls against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the main cause of cervical cancer. The measure represents progress, but does not replace screening tests in adult women. Guaranteeing reproductive health is not only about asking Cuban women to have more children, but also about offering them the means to decide when to have them and prevent preventable or timely treatable diseases from ending up costing them their lives.
