SINGAPORE: More women are seeking referrals for abortion following unplanned pregnancy in Singapore, going by a three-year study conducted by SingHealth Polyclinics (SHP).
In 2020, 340 local women went to the eight polyclinics under the healthcare cluster to ask for a referral to a gynaecologist for an abortion, a 60 per cent increase from the 210 in 2018.
Of them, more than 10 per cent had records of repeated referrals for abortions.
The study, titled “Surveillance of Abortion and Family Planning in Primary Care”, is the first of its kind. It is aimed at identifying the profile of women who visited polyclinics for a referral on their unplanned pregnancy, and if there was an increasing trend.
Women seeking referrals were more likely single, aged below 20 or above 40 years of age, and from poorer households, it found.
Foreign women made up about 16 per cent of women referred for unplanned pregnancy, with an almost two-fold increase from 2017 to 2019, which the main author of the research paper, Ms Stephanie Quak described as a “growing concern”.
“Every year, about 100 foreign domestic workers are sent home because they are discovered to be pregnant, which breaches the legislation. This number could be under-reported, as an unknown fraction of them may have proceeded with the abortion quietly,” said Ms Quak, a student at Duke-NUS Medical School.
“The rise may be due to issues, such as language barriers, poor awareness and knowledge of health, and lack of healthcare accessibility.”