New Draft Law to Help Reduce Teen Pregnancies in Thailand
A new draft law has been announced that aims to reduce teenage pregnancies and provide assistance to young mothers, The Nation reports.
Thailand ranks 11th in the world for teen pregnancies. Image Credit: Daniel Lobo (Flickr)
Teenage pregnancy in Thailand has become a significant problem over the past ten years, with records showing that a baby is born to a mother younger than 15 every two hours. This makes Thailand 11th for teen pregnancies in the world. Teenage pregnancies in Thailand count for roughly 10% of the some 800,000 overall pregnancies per year.
Jetn Siratharanont, president of the National Legislative Assembly’s committee on public health, commented last week: “”We believe the law will help. We need a law, not just rules.”
He continues:
“If the bill is turned into law, the number of teen pregnancies should drop. This is because the new law will prescribe comprehensive sex education. For example, students will learn about how to refuse sexual advances.”
The Prevention of and Solutions to Teenage Pregnancy Bill, as it will be known, was proposed by the Public Health Ministry, and has already received support from the Cabinet. It now requires review from the Council of State before it will become a law.
The bill focuses on girls aged between 10 and 19 and includes sex education and easier access to condoms for teenagers.
Abortion is illegal in Thailand, so encouraging sex education is an important step to reducing the amount of young mothers who have no option but to continue with the pregnancy. This naturally disrupts the girls education, which may impact her for the rest of her life. The new law will mean the schools must allow pregnant students in their classes.
For more on this story, see here.
If you are interested in this story, you may also be interested to learn more about the Planned Parenthood scandal that recently hit the USA. The family planning clinic that conducts abortion procedures has allegedly been encouraging young girls to get abortions – even if they are hesitant at first – in order to sell the aborted fetuses. The sale of human tissue in this way is illegal, not to mention a moral issue for many anti-abortion activists, and even those on the cusp of pro-life and pro-choice. The outrage has led to several states defunding Planned Parenthood’s federal funding.
