The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has lent its support to the Health Ministry's proposal to legalise abortion in rape and incest cases.

Assistant representative Yeoh Yeok Kim said the organisation's backing was based on the need to alleviate the trauma that survivors of rape and incest experience.

She said some survivors have been able to seek abortions legally under current provisions of the law, but that amendment of the Penal Code would allow all survivors to gain easier access to abortions.

Currently, the Penal Code allows for abortions if the attending doctor believes that the mother's physical or mental health would be endangered by pregnancy or childbirth.

Yeoh highlighted the problems caused by illegal abortion clinics to which some women are forced to go because they do not have medical grounds for a legal abortion at a hospital.

"If abortion is legalised, then a professional (doctor) can carry out the procedure. If it is done in illegal clinics, it could damage the woman's reproductive system," she said.

"Unofficial estimates indicate that about 20 to 50 percent of young women in developing countries have had an illegal abortion."

Prevention and sex education

Yeoh stressed, too, that under normal circumstances, the UNFPA would not recommend abortion as a solution.

"We would advocate prevention over abortion in normal cases," she said.

In line with UNFPA's policy of prevention, Yeoh said sex education should be conducted for youth in a more open environment.

"If they understand the concept of equality and the basic rights of a human being, they would realise that it is inhuman to [rape or engage in incest]," she said.

The UNFPA has worked closely with the Health Ministry on issues such as family planning programmes in the past.