Why the Lack of Debate on Abortion?

There is large imbalance in the ratio of male to female births in Taiwan. Underlying this figure is the fact that sometimes female fetuses are aborted because they do not meet the gender preference of the adults involved (parents and/or grandparents).

The church is the main source of anti-abortion opinion in Europe and America. Although religious circles in Taiwan also oppose abortion, they express their views differently than those in the West. （photo by Cheng Yuan-ching）

Internationally, there has long been friction between supporters of access to abortion ("pro- choice" groups) and those who consider abortion to be wrong ("pro-life" groups). The Catholic Church is especially opposed to abortion, so Pope John-Paul II is met by pro-choice protesters everywhere he goes.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, legislation governing eugenics and infant health passed in 1983 made abortion virtually legal in Taiwan. Have there been any voices in Taiwan claiming a "right to life" for the fetus? How do local women's groups see the issue?

Not long after the development of the RU-486 oral abortion tablet in France, US "pro-choice" and "pro-life" groups immediately plunged into a controversy over the pill, with the former hoping to make the pill available in the US and the latter trying to keep it out. Members of Congress confronted each other over the issue, and there were even those who openly broke the law by bringing the drug into the US in hopes of drawing greater attention to the issue.

Not long after, RU-486 became available in Taiwan. There was little opposition or controversy, and the pill was well-received by consumers.

Why so little opposition?

Such different situations! In the US, despite the 1973 Supreme Court ruling giving women the right to abortions in the first trimester, abortion opponents have continually been trying to overturn the decision. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the 1983 legislation on eugenics and infant health states that "in cases where the physical or psychological health of the mother is at risk, induced abortion is permitted." This provision makes abortion freely available to everyone. In Taiwan, RU-486 is seen as just another method. Yet in the US, it has attracted strong opposition.

It is hard to make a case against abortion in densely populated Asian countries, including Taiwan. In any case, it is debatable whether a fetus in the early stages of development is really a "life." These are reasons why in Taiwan there has been no clear-cut splitting into camps as in the West, with "pro-choice" and "pro-life" groups fighting it out in terms of both rights and ideology. Yu Te-hui, associate professor at National Donghwa University, who has taught a course on "Life and Death," argues that there is a reason for this.

Back in the 1970s, when women in the US and Europe began fighting for "reproductive autonomy," the socially and politically influential Catholic Church entered the debate right at the start. The Church positioned itself as speaking "for the rights of the unborn child," providing an organized anti-abortion force. This brought abortion into the realm of public debate, and the "right to choose" became a political issue.

As for China, naturally there have long been voices opposed to abortion. This is especially true because abortion is by no means a modern invention, and in the past people could take medicines to induce miscarriages. Moreover, there were even people who drowned unwanted infants.

"But in China religion has never had the same impact on public policy as it has in the West," notes Yu Te-hui. In terms of defining right and wrong, the religious community's voice has been weak, so there has never been a strong base for "pro-life" views.

Take for example Buddhism, which has had perhaps the deepest impact in China. It is true that Buddhism argues that life begins at conception, when sperm meets egg, and that this life already has a "consciousness." Since it is a life form with feeling, naturally it would be wrong to terminate its existence.

Yet there has been no strong opposition to abortion based on popular religious beliefs. Instead, these religions focus on using prayer, not politics, to end all things seen to be wrong, with the aim of guiding the individual to observe penance for wrong deeds. Yu Te-hui says that though all religions see abortion as immoral, in Taiwan those who have had abortions are not placed beyond the pale by popular religious belief. Thus, for example, people can ease their sense of guilt and do penance through the ceremony of "making offerings to the infant spirit."

Social and psychological pressures

The lack of opposition to abortion may also be partly due to the agricultural origins of Chinese culture. Agricultural societies, facing the threat of periodic famine, perhaps lack even the ability to oppose abortion. In situations of widespread starvation, with frozen corpses lying by the side of the road, abortion and infanticide are difficult options that nevertheless have to be considered. No matter what the level of culture, existence is harsh, and there is greater understanding of hard choices others might need to make.

Also, the old society put women under severe pressure from the husband's families to produce male offspring to carry on the family line, so we cannot entirely blame those who drowned their infant girls (who were often deemed too economically unproductive to waste scarce resources on). Under those circumstances, everyone shared the responsibility.

Yang Kuo-shu, a professor of psychology at National Taiwan University who has long studied the psychology of the Chinese, argues that Chinese place the most emphasis on the collective. This is why in Chinese society much greater importance is placed on the clan rather than the fetus. In the West, on the other hand, emphasis is placed on the individual, so that the mother and the fetus are considered two separate individuals. This creates the foundation for arguing that the fetus has an absolute "right to life."

Moreover, another reason there has been little discussion of abortion is that there has been little discussion of biological and body-related issues in general. Even today, women's self-awareness of their bodies ends at autonomy within marriage, and sexual harassment.

Lacking strong religious and health consciousness, the issue of abortion has not produced great controversy within Taiwan. Like a fist punching cotton, it is without any strength.

Not catholic on the abortion issue

Buddhist Master Shih Wu Hung points out that if people determine whether to abort based on the gender of the baby, there is no room for discussion: There should not be abortion. But the issue also encompasses living conditions--not just life itself, but also the quality of life. Therefore, Buddhism's position on abortion depends on the circumstances, and it does not decide for people whether or not abortion is acceptable.

Yang Kuo-shu adds that Buddhism does not believe that people innately have the ability to refrain from killing; this is why refraining from taking life is considered part of one's self cultivation and learning. As for those who feel regret after having abortions, they are told to read the sutras, reflect, and give their strength to the life that suffered harm because of their actions, to allow the fetus to achieve a transcendent tranquillity and to be able to come back in another form through reincarnation.

Moreover, part of Buddhist belief is that 49 days after death the departed life will transubstantiate into another life form. Thus there is no possibility of so-called "offerings to the infant spirit." To set up memorial tablets and spend money on such offerings is simply trying to compensate for one's deed with cash. That is why the Buddhist community has protested against the large number of advertisements for such rituals, made in the name of Buddhism.

Although there are differences in various schools of Buddhism on the correct path for self-cultivation, they share a fundamental explanation of life. But Wu Hung says, although Buddhism does not recognize the existence of "infant spirits" that must be mollified, the religious act of establishing a memorial tablet can achieve psychological healing. Thus, so long as the goal is not financial gain, Buddhists will not interfere.

Does abortion lead to sexual promiscuity?

In fact, opposition to abortion has not been completely without a "market" in Taiwan. In the past, when the government wanted to increase the population, abortion was strictly prohibited. In the late 1950s, however, with the efforts of Chiang Meng-lin, director of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, the government adopted a policy of slowing population growth. Another consideration was to try to prevent abortion from being an underground industry. Thus a provision was written into the 1983 Law allowing induced abortions.

Those who at the time opposed the legalization of abortion argued that it would lead to sexual promiscuity. This is a markedly different starting point from the position of Western anti-abortion activists, whose focus is on what they call the "right to life" of the "unborn child."

What these anti-abortion activists really objected to was sexual behavior outside of marriage. Therefore, interestingly, they did not condemn abortion for married women. However, they abhorred giving unmarried women the right to choose abortion since this would allow them to escape the consequences of what these activists saw as sexual license, and would thus encourage such promiscuity. In fact, there is no relationship between abortion and sexual promiscuity, and there has been no clear increase in the number of abortions since choice was legalized.

"If the population is small, women are told to have more babies. If there are too many people, women are told to produce fewer children. Of course, then they worry that women will become promiscuous! Anyway, women have always been the tools of population policy," argues Liu Chung-tung of the Feminist Scholars Association and also an associate professor at the National Defense Medical Center. What bothers many people is not abortion per se, but the fact that abortion policy has always been based on considerations of population policy. Policies like "two children is just right" have only emphasized controlling reproduction. Meanwhile, inadequate attention has been devoted to women's health or needs, or to the family pressure women feel to produce male children to carry on the family line.

Yet society puts all the responsibility for population on women. Taking birth control as an example, even though condoms are the safest and most convenient method, in Taiwan in more than 90% of cases women are held responsible for birth control. Women must accept the physical risks of birth control pills and IUDs.

Who likes abortion?

In fact, early on the struggle of Western women for "reproductive autonomy" was in fact a women's health movement. When abortion was illegal, women were the ones at risk from underground abortions. But "pro-life" forces continually tried to keep the focus on the "unborn child." Therefore, back in those days, doctors were forbidden from performing abortions, and women could only lie on the delivery table with no room to express their opinions.

In Asia reproductive rights are in the hands of the state, and women likewise have no right to speak out.

Liu Chung-tung states that women's rights organizations do not focus on "approving or disapproving abortion." In fact, because abortion causes bleeding and a price must be paid in health terms, and using abortion as a form of birth control is harmful to women, no one is happy about abortion.

Ni Chia-chen, secretary-general of the women's group Awakening Foundation, says that in many countries, including Taiwan, it is a non-starter to talk about "the rights of the unborn child." This is because, as long as this society offers only minimal social programs and protection to children, only in conditions where the mother is in robust physical and psychological condition can we talk about the rights of the unborn child.

Also, Taiwan's religious groups do not want the issue of abortion to become polarized.

Taiwan's tolerant Christians

NTU philosophy associate professor Sun Hsiao-che, a Catholic, points out that the Church's opposition to abortion is based on the idea that if one cannot protect and respect a life that has no strength of its own, then how can one respect other lives? The Church also does not accept the idea that just because society cannot provide proper care for a life that the value of its existence should be denied.

This is especially true today, when most abortions are not because of harsh difficulties in the life of the mother. Mostly they occur because people feel that being responsible for another life will hamper their personal development. Thus abortions are often done with a lack of sympathy for life, and with little internal struggle. People today only emphasize the value that they can see before them, and don't consider what they can't see to be life. Given the widespread disregard for life, the position of the Catholic Church in opposition to abortion has significance.

The Church opposes abortion because it wants people to emphasize the value of life, and to differentiate clearly behavior that is good. "But it is very accepting toward the person," Sun says. "Even theology can take the unexpected into consideration."

Tung Fang-yuan, a professor at the China Christian College, says that of course Christianity places great value on life. It believes that people are made in God's image, and that there is boundless glory in being a human being. But the clergy are not directly involved, and as outsiders they cannot assess the position of the individuals involved, so they do not use the power of the church to try to compel others to do something that they don't want to do.

In fact, both the Catholic and Protestant churches, like Buddhism, do not try to label people as irretrievably guilty, but instead wait for the sinner to come around to the good. They do not want to force people to do a good thing that is impossible for that individual to do.

Undeniably, the ideas of religious groups are often distorted in practice, giving people the impression that churches do not accept women's organizations. This is especially true in the US, where abortion has become a political issue. Religious groups lobby to minimize abortion rights. Meanwhile, conservatives try to secure the votes of the "pro-life" belt, mainly in the center and south of the country, while "pro-choice" groups (more strong on the two coasts) take up an opposing position.

But in the eyes of both women's groups and "pro-life" personalities in Taiwan, no matter how contentious and thorny the abortion issue gets in the US, it is still better than the almost complete absence of debate on the issue in Taiwan.

On eugenics

Wu Hung suggests that after abortion became a public policy issue in the West, many problems that seemed to have no answer were resolved. Because debate means that the situation will not deteriorate, but gets people looking for new methods, after discussion many obstacles can be cleared away.

For example, many people now understand that women's fight for the right to choose is not equivalent to "female chauvinism." The emphasis is now placed on whether women have a full understanding of positive and negative implications of abortions for themselves. This is because if there is full understanding before discussions of morality begin, then controversy can be avoided.

Canada, where abortion is legal, has a program of education to give women more complete information, so that women can make their own assessments. If one is not prepared, it is not necessary to have the child, nor need one feel guilty. As for unwed mothers who would like to have the child, they can know where to go for adoption, to make good arrangements for the child.

In Taiwan in the past, in order to achieve the goal of population control, women's health and the lives of fetuses were ignored. Liu Chung-tung argues that today the medical community and society should reassess, discuss, and reflect.

This is especially the case given scientific developments. People can now use technology to discover the sex and any deformities of the fetus. Many countries are beginning to suspect that abortions based on considerations of so-called "eugenics" are in fact presumptuous judgments about the value of life, and amount to killing.

Yet in Taiwan it is national policy to encourage abortions on fetuses with congenital diseases. There is no legally mandated process of reflection, nor is there any other voice telling mothers about the value of life or that there may be families willing to adopt these children.

Abortion may look like a method for solving problems. It appears that it might be a way that families can be "just right" with two normal, healthy children, and keep down social costs. Yet this completely leaves out problems of life, morality, and the health of women.

In Taiwan, there has been little overt conflict over abortion, but it looks like there is still a lot to be discussed about this seemingly quiet issue.