Indonesia launches abortion law reform

Updated September 9, 2008 09:56:45

Indonesia has launched a campaign for abortion law reform. Although abortion is illegal, analysts say around 2 million Indonesian women each year get an abortion, accounting for around 70-percent of all terminations in South-East Asia. The reforms aim to streamline Indonesia's laws, which are so complicated, some government clinics currently carry out abortions, leaving women unsure whether they face criminal penalties.

Presenter: Sonia Randhawa
Speakers: Dr Terence Hull, reproductive health specialist, Australian National University; Rena Herdiyani, executive director, Indonesian women's reproductive health group Kalyana Mitra

RANDHAWA: Abortion is one of the leading causes of death amongst pregnant women in Indonesia, with maternal mortality as high as 1000 deaths per 100,000 live births in some rural regions. Women's groups say up to half these deaths are the result of unsafe abortions, although World Health Organisation figures put the number at less than a third. Nonetheless, the issue's now coming under scrutiny from Indonesian legislators. The country's abortion laws date back to colonialism, when abortion was universally outlawed. Since then, there have been reforms, but the laws are still a source of confusion for doctors and patients alike. Terence Hull is a specialist in reproductive health in Indonesia at the Australian National University.

HULL: There is the criminal code left over by the Dutch colonial period that has fairly draconian punishments for involvement in abortion both for the woman who seeks an abortion and the for the practitioner who provides it. And I would say that Indonesia's just forgot to reform those laws. There are also laws, which are called the Health Laws of 1992, where abortion is not mentioned by name but the law is prohibit certain medical procedures, and doctors are really totally confused as to what that might mean.

RANDHAWA: And the government runs abortion clinics?

HULL: Their government runs clinics and hospitals and other facilities where abortions are sometimes carried out. These are called medically approved abortions.

RANDHAWA: Dr Hull says women wanting to end an unwanted pregnancy have few safe choices:

HULL: There are many, many abortions carried out by medical practitioners on what you might regard as almost a side business to their private practices, and those abortions are very safe in general and they are fairly expensive and out of the reach of poor women. And then there are many abortions, possibly the majority which are carried out by traditional healers of one sort or another using a wide variety of quite dangerous practices. And it's out of those abortions that the deaths occur.

RANDHAWA: Women's reproductive rights group Kalyana Mitra is spearheading the drive for law reform. The executive director is Rena Herdiyani.

HERDIYANI: The state or the government has taking it immediately, abortion and it is not useful if the debate from choice without this priority on safe abortions for the women. Because abortion is not only a moral issue but it is the issue of the woman, her reproductive rights.

RANDHAWA: She says most women having dangerous abortions are married, and poor.

HERDIYANI: The cost of the abortion in Indonesia is very expensive. So the government can have the safe abortion.

RANDHAWA: She explained there are two legally accepted justifications for abortion. One is preganancy as a result of rape, but even here she has concerns.

HERDIYANI: The problem is the woman saying rape has to get permission or recommendation from the legisator, this is the problem because the legislators in Indonesia have different opinions about abortions. Some of the legislators say that abortion can be done if the baby still at the two or four weeks.

RANDHAWA: Radio Australia approached Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari on this issue, but she declined to comment.