Abortion and the women’s movement in Asia Overview, achievements and challenges Suchitra Dalvie Coordinator Asia Safe Abortion Partnership Affiliated with ICMA

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It contains more than 60% of the world's current human population. Given its size and diversity, Asia is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples. Demographically currently many of the countries are poised to have the largest number of young people in the population that there have ever been.

Current scenario…….. While there has been no Pan Asian movement, women’s groups have been active in all countries. Every country in Asia has a different legal environment in terms of abortion. Neighboring countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal cover the range from legal abortion which is not easy to access, to illegal but available as Menstrual Regulation, illegal and unavailable, and legal on request. Very little documented evidence is readily available about the role of women’s movements in safe abortion however.

Some country situations The Government in Sri Lanka has repeatedly defeated efforts to improve access to safe abortions despite overwhelming evidence that it is a women’s need. Legislation to permit abortion even under circumstances of rape or incest was not passed due to fierce opposition from legislators on the grounds that it is a moral issue. In India abortion was legalized in 1972 but due to the efforts of the medical profession and demographers, not through the women’s movement. Unfortunately, the women’s movement has now taken up the issue of sex selection and most of the rhetoric, imagery and advocacy messages of these campaigns are becoming anti- abortion. In Maldives abortion is allowed only for cases of Thalessemia major.

Pakistan has had a strong feminist movement but is dealing with such a spectrum of issues, from honor killings to equal rights, that the issue of abortion is not a prominent feature of the movement. Since 1997, as a result of amendment of the Penal Code, abortion is allowed in the early stages of pregnancy not only to save the life of the woman, but also for providing "necessary treatment". This widened legal permission for carrying out the abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. Nepal has recently made remarkable progress, from a situation where women were often imprisoned for as long as 10 years for undergoing an abortion, they now have abortion on request upto 12 weeks. Recently the Supreme Court dismissed a case filed in 2005 that aimed to overturn the abortion law on the grounds that it discriminates against men, as it allows a woman to terminate a pregnancy without the consent of a husband.

The situation in other countries of Asia such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Malaysia is that abortion services as available have been accepted as a medical service but no strong movement exists in any country to see abortion as handing over to the woman the control of her own body. In Indonesia, the Government is likely to pass the Health Bill, which would improve access to safe abortion services.

In the state of Victoria in Australia, the parliament passed a law last month to remove abortion from the Crimes Act and not put it anywhere else. The underlying principle is that the authority to make the decision lies with the women until she is 24 weeks pregnant, and after that her doctors need to agree that it is ‘appropriate in all the circumstances’. Women’s groups in Australia and Victoria have worked for 40 years to obtain legislation as good as this. A former Premier of the State (and the only woman premier), Joan Kirner decided that good legislation for women would not happen without good women in parliament, and offered financial and political support to women who wanted to be elected to parliament, if they supported a feminist agenda, including decriminalisation of abortion.

Challenges Abortion often gets lost in the SRHR umbrella and direct funding is often difficult. Religious conservatism is gaining ground in most countries leading to restricted access and greater stigmatization of abortion. New advocacy tools have to be created which can deal with new opposition In countries where it is illegal and there is no research and documentation available, there is a need for more accurate information. The medical profession is seen as an adversary by the consumers as well as the feminists and there are probably too few feminist doctors Opposition to Assisted Reproductive Technologies and sex selection often cause collateral damage to the cause of safe abortions.

Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP) ASAP came into existence at the initiative of ICMA, when 37 participants from 13 countries came together in March this year and decided to create a network. Members include activists, service providers, lawyers, programme persons among others. ASAP is a network that is linking all those who work for improving access to safe abortion services and who come from diverse backgrounds and areas of work. We believe that this diversity is our strength and we are working towards the capacity building of our members and their organizations in advocacy and service provision.

We work to create a forum for our members to share experiences and learn from each other. We also provide updated technical information and plan to create a peer to peer network to facilitate service providers who are new to medical abortion. We have a e- forum for discussions and information sharing among members and our membership count has crossed 60 as of now. We believe that abortion should be available to all women not only as soon as possible (ASAP!) but also as late as necessary!

Thank you AWID Forum 2008 Cape Town