The amendment, if passed, would also require women to prove that they had consulted with a physician prior to being able to obtain an abortion. According to the bill, married women will have to prove that they have informed their husbands of the decision to abort the pregnancy, but unlike the current law, they will not have to obtain the husband's permission for the operation to proceed.
In cases where the whereabouts of the husband is unknown, or if he is unconscious or mentally unfit, the stipulation to prove that he has been informed is to be waived. The same applies in situations where the pregnant woman in question can prove that informing her husband of the abortion would endanger her safety.
A patriarchal conception of morality still dominates ROC legal canon governing abortions. Under the Eugenics and Health Care Act of 1984, adult single women, for example, are allowed to have an abortion in cases of rape or seduction, or in cases where the father is married to someone else.
Even under the new bill, the consent of a parent or legal guardian would still have to be obtained before unmarried minors--in Taiwan, the age of majority is 18 years--can obtain an abortion. The architects of the bill included language to the effect that, if the legal guardian were unable to exercise his guardianship duties, the nation's social welfare authorities would make the decision for her based on what they consider to be her best interests.
Women's rights groups were especially indignant over the stipulation forcing women to wait for a three-day period following a clinical consultation before they would be allowed to terminate the pregnancy. The waiting period, according to the bill, is to force women to "think it over." After the Executive Yuan approved the bill, it was reported that three members of the Commission on Women's Rights Promotion quit in protest.
Representatives of women's rights groups called an Oct. 23 press conference to outline their reasons for opposing the bill. The three-day clause was at the top of the list, with a statement released by Taiwan Women's Link pointing out that this would not only deprive women of their right to their own bodies, but it would not even accomplish the government's goal of reducing the number of abortions in Taiwan. According to a local medical survey, women contemplating having abortions usually wrestle with the decision for at least eight days.
Chi Hui-jung, head of the Garden of Hope Foundation, said the government should offer help instead of interference. "We should make information and services available to pregnant girls, not tell them what to do," she was quoted as saying.
Abortion was practiced widely in Taiwan even before it was legalized in the mid-1980s. Opponents charge it was and still is used inappropriately as a form of contraception by Taiwanese teen-agers. Even today, the exact number of abortions each year is difficult to estimate due to the prevalence of illegal abortions conducted in private clinics, a market created in part by the law making it impossible for women to discreetly obtain abortions.
According to the Journal of the Royal Society of Health, a study involving 17,000 women conducted between 1991 and 1992 showed that 46 percent of Taiwanese women had had abortions previously. Among them, 54.8 percent had had one abortion, 29.7 percent had had two and 15.5 percent had had three or more. It also showed that the abortion ratio was 379 abortions per 1,000 live births. The abortion ratio, according to the report, was highest for women younger than 20 years old, for first-time pregnancies and for aboriginal women.
Representatives of many of the island's religious groups had been lobbying the Cabinet to force women to wait for a seven-day period to have an abortion. It was reported that these groups also opposed changing the stipulation from getting spousal consent to merely informing them, on the grounds that abortion, as with procreation, is a decision to be made by both parents.
The Executive Yuan's bill, which would also change the name of the Eugenics and Health Care Act to the Birth and Health Care Act, has been sent to the Legislature for consideration.