Malaysia.

Unwanted pregnancies and women's reproductive choices and rights, including access to contraception and safe abortion services, were the key issues taken up in the Kehamilan yang tidak diingini: Pilihan wanita dan hak-hak reproduktif ke atas kontrasepsi dan pengguguran session at the Fiesta Feminista-Malaysia on 17 June 2007 in Kuala Lumpur. Organised by the Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance of Malaysia (RRAAM), the 2-hour parallel session was attended by about 30 participants-mostly coming from women's organisations all over the country and a few media practitioners.

Rashidah Abdullah, RRAAM co-coordinator, ARROW co-founder and long-time reproductive rights activist, laid out Malaysian women's sexual and reproductive realities vis-a-vis the government's poor family planning programme, which result in women's low use of contraceptives and high rates of unwanted pregnancies. She outlined various choices women make in dealing with unwanted pregnancies, discussed the issues surrounding access to safe abortion services (e.g., quality and legal issues, economic and social barriers, availability of post-abortion counselling, and others) and ended with a discussion on women's reproductive rights. Mr. S. Radhakrishnan, lawyer and former President of the Medico Legal Society, discussed women's legal rights for abortion. He pointed out that contrary to common understanding, the law allows a doctor to decide on termination of a pregnancy for physical and mental health reasons. Finally, factual statistics on the abortion situation in Malaysia, as well as the elements of women-centred abortion services and challenges to abortion access were discussed by Dr. S.P. Choong, RRAAM co-coordinator and the director of a clinic providing women-centred reproductive health services for over 20 years. The floor discussion that followed further clarified abortion's legal status and emphasised the necessity of networking among various groups across the country to be able to increase women's access to safe abortion.

The Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance of Malaysia was set up in 2007 as an alliance of individuals and NGOs committed to increasing access to the right to safe, legal and affordable abortion and contraceptive services through information, education and evidence-based advocacy. The Fiesta Feminista session was RRAAM's first public education activity; this will be followed by a seminar for 200 doctors and nurses in Seremban on 3 July 2007.

Source: Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance Malaysia (RRAAM), Email: [e-mail]