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Vietnam Sees More Abortions Than Live Births in Ho Chi Minh City

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 26, 2007
Hanoi, Vietnam (LifeNews.com) -- The number of abortions has declined in
Ho Chi Minh City, but the large Asian city still sees more abortions
there than live births. Vietnam has long had one of the highest abortion
rates in both Asia and the world and the United Nations recently said
sex-selection abortions are causing significant gender gaps.

The VietNamNet Bridge news service reports that the number of abortions
in HCM City in 2006 fell by 30% from 2000, with 103,972 abortions.

Doctor Duong Phuong Mai, who heads the family planning department at Tu
Du Obstetrics Hospital, said there were 19,000 abortions there from
January to September 2007 and about the same number of births. That's
something that has been going on for years.

Despite the decline, the city failed to meet the goals the national
government has set -- of reducing abortions by 50 percent.

Part of the reason abortions are so high in the city VietNamNet Bridge
reports is that the number of abortions on teenagers is rising.

According to figures the city government sent to national officials, HCM
City hopes to reduce abortions there by 10 percent annually from now
until 2010.

In October, the UN issued a new report praising the population control
efforts in Vietnam but acknowledged the devastating effects the program
has had there.

The new report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) praises
Vietnam for lowering its fertility rate to 2.09 children per woman,
which is just below the level of replacement.

However, the pro-abortion agency warns that the sex ratio is becoming
skewed in the Asian nation just as it is in India and China.

According to UNFPA, the sex ratio at birth (the number of boys born to
every 100 girls) is becoming imbalanced. Part of the reason for this is
the cultural preference for boys and the nation's limit of only two
children per family.

This has led to an incidence of sex-selection abortions and infanticides
that are seen in other Asian countries where social norms are different
from the industrialized West. It also leads to sex trafficking, child
abandonment, and a society where men can't find partners to marry and
start families of their own.

The population levels have also stabilized in part because Vietnam has
one of the highest abortion rates in the world. It is also experiencing
high rates of infertility among women there, which is another sign of
the damage abortion causes women.

The number of abortions in the communist nation is staggeringly high and
government figures show one woman dies every five days from abortions
there.

According to national health statistics, 760,000 abortions were carried
out in 1989, 1.3 million in 1994 and 1.4 million in 1995.

In 1999, the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of
Planned Parenthood, reported that Vietnam had the highest abortion rate
of any nation.