The arrest of a nurse for providing abortions in Nakhon Ratchasima should serve as a wake-up call on this important social issue. Suwanna Kaewsawang, 56, a certified health care professional, was charged with operating an abortion service in her converted apartment. While her legal case continues, it is clear that officials of the Ministry of Public Health -- who directed the police raid -- are far behind the curve on a subject no one really wants to talk about, but must.
For Ms Suwanna, it's her second arrest since she quit her job at a private hospital in Korat and became freelance. In 2007, according to police, she was arrested in much the same circumstances. She had facilities, medical devices and medication used in the aborting of foetuses. In that 2007 case, she was acquitted. Authorities don't like to discuss that inconvenient fact, either.
Criminalising abortion occurred many decades ago, long before the so-called world sexual revolution. On this subject, officials have ignored changing attitudes towards sexuality and family planning.
Thais who oppose legalising abortions are undoubtedly in the majority. A non-scientific but revealing poll by the Bangkok Post website seven years ago this week showed a margin of almost 8-to-1 opposing any steps towards making abortion legal. This majority ignores or arrogantly dismisses inconvenient facts.
There is no such thing as universal abstinence. Nor is there 100% protection against conception during sex, by any existing method. Unwanted pregnancies, contrary to the sometimes holier-than-thou opponents, occur in all social classes, to all ages, to women in every type of relationship from none to married. Equally untrue is the belief that people are not educated well. From youngsters to married couples, Thais know where babies come from. And that abortion is not birth control. Anyone who has ever talked to a woman or couple about abortion knows the agonising such people go through in deciding to take the medical way out.
Ms Suwanna faces several charges: for providing abortions, for providing medical services without a licence and for the illegal possession of medication found in her apartment-clinic. The decision by the Ministry of Public Health to lead the raid that led to her arrest was arguably proper. Where the ministry has failed is to bring the subject to both the government and the people in a helpful manner.
The last time the issue of abortion reached the public at large was in 2010, in a most gruesome manner. A Bangkok temple, charged with the cremation of hundreds of aborted foetuses, had instead stored them. This was considered effective desecration by many. But on abortion in general, the then Abhisit Vejjajiva government insisted that the laws were exactly right and flexible enough. The problem, it said, was that young people no longer had the proper morals, and this led them to abortion mills.
While advancements in medicine now offer safe options like abortion pills for early pregnancy termination -- the Public Health Ministry registered the WHO-endorsed pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, in 2014 -- the short-sighted view of the state that continues today, together with the archaic abortion law, means the use of the pills has been tightly limited. That forces women to go to clinics like the one operated by Ms Suwanna. Most, if not all, women know full well that this medical procedure is best performed under regulated and sterile conditions by medical staff and that illegal abortions carried out by people like Ms Suwanna can be life-threatening, but the law gives them no choice.
"Backstreet abortion mills", like Ms Suwanna's alleged makeshift clinic, will continue to meet demand so long as government withholds supply.