Abortions Outstrip Live Births in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: 100,000+ Annually

The population of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is estimated at about 6.5 million or about 7.4% of the total population of Vietnam; making it the highest population-concentrated city in the country.

Local sources say the number of abortions is greater than the number of births. Abortions are done to maintain incomes or out of fear for one’s reputation. Redemptorist Fathers pray for those who abort “out of cowardice” and those who fight for life. They have set up a centre that takes in unmarried pregnant women.

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Another woman, who is six-month pregnant, said the more than 1,000 cement containers hold the ashes of aborted foetuses the Redemptorists have cremated. Members of the pro-life group the former founded collect around 50 to 200 aborted foetuses every day from hospitals and clinics in the city for a decent disposal. A Redemptorist father said that each 10-by-10-by-30-centimetre container can hold the ashes of some 50 to 70 aborted foetuses. Hundreds of the containers are kept in the chapel's sanctuary.

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According to the Hồ Chí Minh City-based Center for Protection of Health of Mothers and Children and Family Planning, more than 100,000 abortions take place in the city each year and that, in recent years, abortions outnumbered births. According to its own data, there were 114,002 abortions and 112,426 births in 2003 compared to 108,193 abortions and 107,314 births in 2004.

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Statistics Canada reports our nation’s abortion rate for 2004 was 100,763. Our total population is about 33.4 million.

Even one child violently and willfully killed by a mother or her accomplice is too many. It’s also a crime, regardless of a nation’s laws.

PRI Criticizes Today’s Guttmacher Institute Report On World Abortion Rates

The Population Research Institute (PRI) was founded in 1989 and is dedicated to: (1) ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning", (2) opposing outdated social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of overpopulation, (3) informing the public about the social and economic benefits of moderate population growth, and (4) promoting pro-natal and pro-family attitudes and policies worldwide.

We have often blogged their news alerts and briefings. Today they released this statement, criticizing the Guttmacher Institute's latest report on world abortion rates. There are no other links to the report online at this point so I presume PRI had a sneak look at the report. Here’s what they had to say.

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PRI Criticizes Guttmacher Report

FRONT ROYAL, Va., Oct. 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Guttmacher Institute's latest report on world abortion rates is a self-serving fantasy, says Population Research Institute President Steven W. Mosher. The study, just released today, argues that 42 million abortions were performed in 2003, most in developing countries.

Accurate numbers are impossible to glean from developing countries, however, where abortion is generally illegal. Says Mosher: "Neither Guttmacher nor anyone else knows how many abortions have been performed worldwide in this year or any other year."

"In Columbia, Guttmacher reports hundreds of thousands of abortions," Mosher says. "Yet PRI was recently informed by the Columbian Vice Minister for Health that the Ministry has performed only about 50 abortions since the legalization of abortion last May. This is several orders of magnitude smaller than Guttmacher claims."

According to Mosher, Guttmacher "deliberately exaggerates the magnitude of the problem in order to create the impression of a 'health crisis.' After all, the more women they can claim have 'unsafe' abortions, the more women they can claim die as a result."

"As the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the Alan Guttmacher Institute necessarily reflects the agenda of its parent organization, which is to impose abortion on demand on countries around the world."

[Source]

PRI has recently made available two very informative videos outlining some of the work they do. Videos are available on YouTube, here and here.