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NHSO to push for safe abortion
NHSO to push for safe abortion
The National Health Security Office (NHSO) will push for safe abortion, in response to the civil society groups calling for women’s access to safe and legal abortion care.
On Jul 27, the civil society groups comprising 59 organizations visited the NHSO headquarters to submit a letter voicing concern for women’s limited access to safe abortion care.
The groups include Choices Network Thailand, Association for Referral System for Safe Abortion (RSA), 1633 Call Center for unplanned pregnancies, and AIDS Access Foundation.
Kritaya Archavanitkul, the coordinator of Choices Network Thailand supporting women with unplanned pregnancies, said that Thai lawmakers had amended the abortion law in 2021 to allow safe and legal abortion.
But many health providers, especially the state hospitals, have rejected abortion cases despite the pregnant women’s necessity, she said.
The law legalizes abortion for women pregnant for no longer than 12 weeks. Women with more than 12-week pregnancies but no more than 20 weeks have the right to request abortion too if it is safe.
Physicians can also provide abortion care if the pregnancy put women at risk of physical and mental health, babies at risk of being disabled or having genetic disorders or if the pregnancy is caused by sexual assault.
“It has been 18 months since the law came into enforcement. But we have found many health providers refuse to provide abortion care to women despite the law legalizing it,” said Kritaya.
Her groups found other challenges, including the hospitals’ slow progress in performing genetic disorders tests for babies, forcing women to lose the opportunity to have abortions within the safe time range.
Dr Sanya Patrachai, a lecturer at Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, and a member of the Association for RSA Development, said that the test results might come out after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
In many cases, doctors pursued mothers to keep the babies against their will. When mothers insisted to have abortions, doctors forced them to seek services from other health providers.
This is against medical ethics, said Dr Sanya, but many women didn’t take legal action against doctors because they didn’t want to get into trouble. They ended up looking for other health providers, which might lead them to the risk of having unsafe abortions.
“I want to highlight two points [from the case studies of health providers rejecting women’s abortion requests.] First, there is no reason to reject them because the present medical technology can ensure safe abortion,” he said.
“Second, we know that many doctors rejected women’s abortion requests because they fear themselves being sinful. This is based on personal reasons rather than medical and professional reasons. Using personal reasons for medical decision-making is inappropriate and can increase the health risk of pregnant women.”
The civil society groups called the NHSO to collaborate with Ministry of Public Health, which oversees public hospitals, to issue a medical guideline for safe abortion that will allow pregnant women to access the services timely and widely.
They also urged the NHSO to coordinate with operators of other government healthcare schemes — Social Security Scheme and Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme — to draft the reimbursement guideline for abortion care and set up the complaint channels for abortion rejection cases.
After receiving the letter from civil society groups, the NHSO secretary-general Dr Jadej Thammathataree said that the NHSO would discuss the groups’ demands and push for access to safe abortion care in universal healthcare coverage.
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The National Health Security Office (NHSO) will push for safe abortion, in response to the civil society groups calling for women’s access to safe and legal abortion care.
On Jul 27, the civil society groups comprising 59 organizations visited the NHSO headquarters to submit a letter voicing concern for women’s limited access to safe abortion care.
The groups include Choices Network Thailand, Association for Referral System for Safe Abortion (RSA), 1633 Call Center for unplanned pregnancies, and AIDS Access Foundation.
Kritaya Archavanitkul, the coordinator of Choices Network Thailand supporting women with unplanned pregnancies, said that Thai lawmakers had amended the abortion law in 2021 to allow safe and legal abortion.
But many health providers, especially the state hospitals, have rejected abortion cases despite the pregnant women’s necessity, she said.
The law legalizes abortion for women pregnant for no longer than 12 weeks. Women with more than 12-week pregnancies but no more than 20 weeks have the right to request abortion too if it is safe.
Physicians can also provide abortion care if the pregnancy put women at risk of physical and mental health, babies at risk of being disabled or having genetic disorders or if the pregnancy is caused by sexual assault.
“It has been 18 months since the law came into enforcement. But we have found many health providers refuse to provide abortion care to women despite the law legalizing it,” said Kritaya.
Her groups found other challenges, including the hospitals’ slow progress in performing genetic disorders tests for babies, forcing women to lose the opportunity to have abortions within the safe time range.
Dr Sanya Patrachai, a lecturer at Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, and a member of the Association for RSA Development, said that the test results might come out after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
In many cases, doctors pursued mothers to keep the babies against their will. When mothers insisted to have abortions, doctors forced them to seek services from other health providers.
This is against medical ethics, said Dr Sanya, but many women didn’t take legal action against doctors because they didn’t want to get into trouble. They ended up looking for other health providers, which might lead them to the risk of having unsafe abortions.
“I want to highlight two points [from the case studies of health providers rejecting women’s abortion requests.] First, there is no reason to reject them because the present medical technology can ensure safe abortion,” he said.
“Second, we know that many doctors rejected women’s abortion requests because they fear themselves being sinful. This is based on personal reasons rather than medical and professional reasons. Using personal reasons for medical decision-making is inappropriate and can increase the health risk of pregnant women.”
The civil society groups called the NHSO to collaborate with Ministry of Public Health, which oversees public hospitals, to issue a medical guideline for safe abortion that will allow pregnant women to access the services timely and widely.
They also urged the NHSO to coordinate with operators of other government healthcare schemes — Social Security Scheme and Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme — to draft the reimbursement guideline for abortion care and set up the complaint channels for abortion rejection cases.
After receiving the letter from civil society groups, the NHSO secretary-general Dr Jadej Thammathataree said that the NHSO would discuss the groups’ demands and push for access to safe abortion care in universal healthcare coverage.
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