In Vietnamese society newspapers play a very active role, bringing all kinds of issues to public attention and debate. Recently one of Ho Chi Minh City’s most widely read papers ran a series of articles entitled “Abortions among the young: SOS” - heart-rending articles which have caused a lot of talk. While the public are rightly shocked by the statistics and stories of teenage pregnancies, to the Christian the overall statistics are particularly horrifying.

In Vietnam abortion is available on demand. Figures for the whole country are unavailable, but must total hundreds of thousands of abortions per year. Just one hospital in Ho Chi Minh City performs at least 30,000 a year, at least 250 on girls under 18. Another city health centre has recently handled nearly ten times as many abortions as actual births. And it is not just an urban phenomenon: one rural province reports about 12,000 cases a year (10-16% unmarried women). Of the cases of young, unmarried women, while the stories of school girls and university students have attracted attention before, the articles reveal that poor factory workers on industrial estates actually form the majority. Besides the human lives cut off, how many thousands – surely millions – of women must be carrying the guilt and other psychological scars which these operations leave.

Clearly the vast majority of cases are married women. Why are the figures so high? Contraception is available but few seem to use it. Basically abortion is regarded as entirely commonplace and not wrong. The language doesn’t help. Before birth, a child is a thai (foetus) not an em be (baby). And termination in the first few months of pregnancy is euphemistically called “regularising menstruation”. Most couples want to limit and space their children for economic reasons. The government also urges people to have only 1 or 2 children, though few would suffer any formal penalty for having more. Also there is still a preference for male children. Rumor has it that the boy:girl ratio in some primary schools is nearly 60:40 – another social time-bomb.

Vietnam’s Roman Catholics seem well-informed that abortion is wrong and their churches run thorough marriage preparation classes. In contrast, it is doubtful whether all Tin Lanh (Protestant) believers even know that abortion is wrong, since churches rarely if ever openly say so. There are no marriage preparation classes or talks to young people on such issues. Surely many Christian women quietly have abortions without letting anyone know.

In response to the newspaper coverage, in one Roman Catholic church in Ho Chi Minh City twenty or so enterprising women have formed a society and now go to some of the big maternity hospitals, mingle with patients in the waiting rooms and try to counsel women to keep their babies. Christian health professionals working in this area are few – since they face the stark choice between taking part in such operations or losing their jobs – but two or three Tin Lanh believers are now considering setting up a combined examination and counseling clinic. Small drops in a huge ocean. In the Tin Lanh church, only initiative taken at a central level could really bring significant change; there are executive committee members responsible for women and for youth but they undoubtedly have their hands full of all kinds of other pressing issues. Please pray for an effective response by the Tin Lanh church to the huge problem of abortion in Vietnam.