Over the last four months, teen mums and abandoned babies have captured headlines in media across the country.

We support the media highlighting such important issues for public debate. However, we note with regret that public debate and government responses on these issues have been tentative and unrealistic in relation to the real problems on the ground, rather like trying to put out a house on fire with a water pistol.

Reports and discussions have been largely a repeat of previous debates which fail to examine the issue from all angles.

For instance, while the reports of 100 abandoned babies a year is shocking, a little known or talked about statistic is the estimated 10,000 teen pregnancies that are aborted annually, or the 100,000 total abortions performed annually in Malaysia.

Teen mums and baby dumping are only part of a bigger problem of unintended pregnancies. While proposals for better sex education, more shelter homes and baby hatches do help, they don't actually deal with the basic problems.

More important issues such as societal attitudes, poor reproductive health services for women, misguided government policies and regulations on women's rights and health are the real obstacles to any progress in resolving this problem.

How do women cope and deal with their unintended pregnancies? Abortion services: where to find them, at what costs, how safe are they? These and other questions are unexamined because the stigma and a conspiracy of silence surrounding these critical issues.

We believe there is a real need for government agencies, the media and the NGOs to be more aware of the real facts in order to play a meaningful role in finding solutions to the problem of teen pregnancies and abandoned babies.

The writer is co-chair, Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance Malaysia (RRAAM).