KABUL -- Abortion up to the third month of pregnancy is legal again for Afghan women if their health is in danger, but after that they risk six months jail if they turn to backstreet abortionists.

All abortions were banned under the fundamentalist Islamic rule of the Taleban militia from 1996-2001.

But according to other readings of the Qoran, Islam leaves the choice of contraception and the extreme solution of abortion up to individual families.

It is an issue which is left up to the private sphere of the family and about which Islam is very discreet," AFP quoted Sahib Nazar, history professor at Kabul University as saying.

"The laws and customs of Afghanistan don't allow abortion on demand or criminal abortions. There are very few illegal abortions," said Doctor Rahima Zafer Staniczi.

The 32-year-old woman doctor has run the main women's hospital in Kabul, the Rabia Balji, for three years.

Since I have worked at this hospital, there have been no illegal abortions. Before that I don't know," she said.

In our hospital, no patient can terminate her pregnancy unless she is ill or she can't carry it to term for medical reasons."

Gynecologist Maruf Same, who has spent 24 years in his profession, said that under previous Islamic governments "there was family planning, contraception and we also gave advice about abortions. But that's no longer the case."

Same, 55, was one of the few male doctors who did not flee the country when the Taleban barred male physicians from treating women.

He runs the gynecological hospital of Nazo Ana in Kabul, where he says there is no alternative to the law.

To have a legal abortion, you have to get certificates from three different doctors and permission from the ministry that the patient has to have a medical termination," said Health Ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim.

Because of the strict rules "we only get one or two requests for an abortion out of the 150 patients we treat daily," said doctor Nasrin, who works at the Nazo Ana hospital.

But there are other reasons why women would wish to have an abortion, said one Afghan woman, asking to remain anonymous.

The post-natal mortality rates among women are extremely high, and amid a lack of contraceptives, women on average give birth to 6-7 children, according to figures from the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF.

Afghanistan and Sierra Leone have the highest rates of deaths during pregnancy and child-birth at 17 out of every 1,000, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

For 100 to 200 dollars, you can have an illegal abortion in Afghanistan. It's a crime against our religion and our laws, but it happens all the same," said the Afghan woman.

Maximum penalties can include six months in jail for the person carrying out the abortion and for the woman involved," she said.

Apart from that in the case of backstreet abortions, women often arrive in hospital with perforated uteruses, vaginal infections, hemorrahges or shock," she added.