Rising rate of abortion
Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) In Ho Chi Minh City, hundreds of women go to state hospitals or "private rooms" to have abortions, many of them under the age of 18, and their number keeps growing.
"We went to see the consulting room of a hospital's natal and pre-natal care unit to find the reasons that push young women to have an abortion," said a young Catholic social worker.
"When we arrived we saw that many of the women were young and from various social backgrounds," he said.
One woman was sitting alone, crying; another was telling her boyfriend that she was scared, the young man explained.
"There is no choice involved. Many of the young women have to do it because they cannot carry their pregnancy to term," he said. "They are 17 or 18 and have not yet finished high school. Many don't want their families to know they are pregnant and so face the problem alone. Abortion has a serious impact on their health and psyche and can lead to social ills".
In Ho Chi Minh City, where many young women choose to have abortions, a doctor wrote to Thanh Nien online telling the story of a 13-year-old girl who was in her 10th week of pregnancy and on whom she performed an abortion.
She also related the story of a 19-year-old woman whose pregnancy was well-advanced. "She chose to end her pregnancy and the physicians performed the abortion using the "early birth" method. When she saw the dead baby, the young woman panicked. This was five years ago and she is still traumatised by the experience and doctors believe she'll suffer from hysteria for the rest of her life."
For Dr Phuong, head of the hospital's Family Planning Department, "in every abortion case, whether in early or late phases of pregnancy, women remain psychologically scared for a long time, sometimes for life."
"It is obvious, and this chilling, that the surgery has a finality to it; it causes death," she explained.
Vietnam currently has one of the highest levels of abortion in the world. Its best known hospital Ho Chi Minh City's Tu Du Hospitalreports some 33,000 abortions per year. And five per cent of those cases involve patients under the age of 18 in late phase of pregnancy.
Recently, hospitals in HaNoi, Nam Dinh, Hoa Binh and Ho Chi Minh City surveyed some 1,800 women who had abortions. Their results indicate that 50 per cent suffered bacterial infections as post-abortion consequence, 47 per cent had abortions that were dangerous to their health, 11 per cent had abortions without pre-surgery care and 57 per cent did not receive post-surgery follow-up. Finally, 10 per cent experienced catastrophic consequences after the abortions.
According to experts, the main causes that induce women to have an abortion are the desire to have a life of pleasure, society's moral crisis and consumerism.
.png)
09/03/2006
