Abortion in Thailand: a feminist perspective

With the passing of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, women's issues in Asia have moved increasingly to the forefront. One such issue, abortion, continues to generate controversy as many women argue for protection and/or recognition of their reproductive rights. The objectives of this paper are threefold: (1) To examine the abortion debate in Thailand, identifying issues raised by Thai feminist scholars about the status of women; (2) To overview some of the more prominent feminist arguments regarding abortion (particularly those written by Canadian and American scholars) as a tool for defining women's reproductive rights; (3) To focus on a study of attitudes toward abortion among health care personnel and post-induced abortion patients in Bangkok, Thailand in order to discern the degree of support (if any) for feminist abortion arguments.