1

SMALL ASPECTS ABOUT THE STATUS OF ABORTION IN

VIETNAM AND AMERICA

Nguyen Duy Duc, April 4th

2013,

St. Code: 0957010057

Chapter I: Abstract

Abortion is a controversial topic in the world, in many societies because of its social issues. It

has been banned frequently and otherwise limited by law. However, abortions in the world

nowadays are being common, even they are illegal or legal. Abortion rates are different among

the countries. The number of abortions worldwide is happening complicatedly due to the status

of abortion in each country.

Therefore, the research chooses two countries America and Vietnam for the study. The reasons

choosing this topic is because the status of abortion between the two countries is happening up

and down. Besides, the status of the political institution and policy is different from the two

countries. In this case, abortion policies also have different things.

To provide essential information about abortion rate in Vietnam and America, the article tries to

answer the following questions: What is the situation of abortion in Vietnam in recent years?

What is the situation in America in America? What is the difference between the two situation of

abortion trend between America and Vietnam?

2

Chapter II: Why Women Get Abortions

To know why women choose as a method, there are some reasons. Women in all parts of the

world have abortion and they have similar reasons: need to continue education, unable to afford

to raise a child, no in stable relationship, pregnancy too close to previous birth, need to care for

existing children. In fact, there are little relationship between legal status of abortion and how

often it occurs.

The statistics is that women who have never been married account for one-third of abortions in

America as an example. And less than 1% of all abortions take place because of rape and/or

incest. This proves that almost of women gets abortions is all because they are trying to choose

abortion as a method. There are some reasons why women are seeking an abortion including

inadequate finance, not ready for responsibility, woman’s life would be changed too much,

problems with relationships, unmarried, too young and/or immature, children are grown; she has

all she wants, baby has possible health problems, pregnancy caused by rape/incest and other. The

percentage of these reasons is shown with the pie chart below.

Source: http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

22%

22%

17%

12%

11%

8% 3%

1%

4% WHY WOMEN GET ABORTIONS IN AMERICA

Inadequate finances

Not ready forresponsibility

Woman’s life would be changed too much

3

The biggest reasons are that women are not really for their responsibility and inadequate finances

for avoiding a born child, both are 22%. 17% for woman’s life would be changed too much mean

women are not ready for their responsibility. It ranks a third position.

In Vietnam, the main reason is due to their limited awareness of contraceptive methods. Low

education level also affects the abortion. The abortion of people at low education level is

relatively high, but people with elementary school graduation have the lowest rate of abortion.

4

Chapter III: The status of abortion in America

ABORTION IN AMERICA AND THE WORLD

In order to understand about the status of abortion in America, a comparison between America

and the world through the statistics below is easier to look through.

Source:http://www.mswm.org/abortions.worldwide.abortionstatistics.htm

The trend of aborting in the world and the trend of abortion in North America (including

America) is in the same situation. Abortion rate of the world falls down from 35 people in 1

millions to 28 people. In North America, 22 people in 1995 in 1 millions people decrease to 17

people in 2008. In general, the number falling is not big through 13 years. Comparing North

5

America to other parts of the world, Africa is the highest. The following is Asia, Europe and

Latin America. The rate of abortion and the number of abortion as well of Africa Asia, Europe,

Latin America is much higher than North America (including America).

INCIDENTS OF ABORTION

Following the statistics of National Center for Health Statistics, 4,317,119 babies were born in

the U.S. in 2007. And about half of all pregnancies are unintended, which is all unintended

pregnancies, 4 in 10 babies are aborted. Below is a pie chart to show about the outcomes of

Unintended Pregnancies in 2007.

Source: http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

The chart shows us the outcomes of the Unintended Pregnancies. There are 40% of the

Unintended Pregnancies is aborted, 13% miscarry in comparison with 47% babies given birth.

More than a haft of 100% pregnancies of Unintended Pregnancies can not is born, alive.

6

According to Operation Rescue, one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the

nation, there are approximately 1.21 million abortions in America each year.

ABORTION BY GESTATIONAL AGE

The huge amount of pregnancies is aborted in the first period by gestational age, 61% of less

then 9 weeks gestational age. The following is period 9-10 weeks gestational age. Through the

chart, it can be said that the rate of aborted pregnancies is smaller when the pregnancies is bigger

in bigger gestational age. Only 1% in total of abortion is when the pregnancies is more than 21

weeks.

7

ABORTIONS BY MATERNAL AGE

ABORTION BY RACE

Blacks comprise only 13% of the population of America but account for 37% of all abortions.

Black women are five times more likely to abort than white women. 69% of pregnancies among

Blacks are unintended, while that number is 54% among Hispanics and 40% of pregnancies

among Whites. Planned Parenthood, the largest seller of abortions in the United States, has

8

located 80% of its abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods, disproportionally targeting

minorities for abortion.

Source:http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

ABORTION BY RELIGION

Source: http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

The United States spends 40 years of legalized abortion in all fifty states, the anniversary of the

Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision 1973. Since then, according to the statistics published by

24%

42%

27%

7%

ABORTION BY RELIGION

None

Protestant

Catholic

Other

9

the National Right to Life Committee in 2011, it is estimated that there are approximately

55,772,015 abortions that have destroyed the lives of unborn children. This is a high rate for any

country. It can be said that abortion is popular term for American people. The number means

there are more than 3,300 abortions daily and 137 abortions per hour every hour in the United

States. Translated another way, an abortion is done about every 30 seconds in the United States.

Forty percent of pregnancies among white women, 67% among blacks and 53% among

Hispanics are unintended.

Chapter IV: The status of abortion in Vietnam

In recent years, the abortion rate in Vietnam has been likely rising. According to result of

analyzed statistics of Investigation Office in 2009, Vietnam population increases 110.6 boy kids

per 100 girl kids in 2009, which is higher than the standard 104 – 106 boys per 100 girls.

Vietnamese government really cares about gender imbalance. Prenatal sex selection is the direct

reason for gender imbalance. According to Vietnamese law, this action is considered as illegal

one, according to Population Ordinance, by the Conference in 2003 and Government Decree

114, published in Nov 2006. However, abortion is legal and available at various provinces and

cities throughout the country.

About one-third to one-half of the abortions is performed in small health clinics but women are

dying at an alarming rate.

10

The Vietnamese government is hoping to lower the abortion rates and is encouraging the 83

million people to use contraception in higher numbers. It is also planning a new sex education

campaign to encourage teens and young adults to use contraception as well.

Vietnam has one of the highest abortion rates in both Asia and the world and the number of

abortions has been rising. According to national health statistics, 760,000 abortions were carried

out in 1989, 1.3 million in 1994 and 1.4 million in 1995.

Vietnam is one of two countries to receive an award from the United Nations in 1998 for its

population control programs.

Every day, there are 400 women aborting. According to the statistics of General Office for

Population Family Planning, there are approximately 120.000 to 130.000 abortions every year in

Vietnam. In average, there are about 400 abortions in a day in Vietnam. For example in Tu Du

hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, there was a time it is estimated that there are 40.000 abortions per

year.

Considered in terms of married women’s educational level during the age of 15 - 49, the result is

as follows.

11

Source: Self-calculation based on the survey results about changes in population - family

planning, 2005

The abortion rate of women from 15 - 49 by education level (%)

The above figure indicates that the high abortion rate of object groups with low educational

levels, such as illiterate people, was highest (0.44%). Then, it declines when educational level

increases: elementary school under-graduation (0.29%) and elementary school graduation

(0.25%). Here, the abortion rate rises up to 0.35% for groups with high school graduation, and

the group of high school graduation had lower rate of abortion than secondary school graduation

group (0.31%). It can be recognized that the complicated change in the correlation between

education level and abortion.

In the relation between the number of born children and the abortion rate, it can be said that it

has a clear difference. Families with one or two born children had the highest abortion rate, while

families with 3 or more born children or no born children had lower abortion rate. Obviously, the

number of born children will decide the abortion, which means families with more than born

12

children want to choose abortion as a method to limit children.

Source: Self - calculation based on the survey result about changes in population and family

planning, 2005

The abortion rate of women from 15-49 by the number of alive children (%)

About the number of abortion times, the results below show that married women from 15 - 49

years old who had one abortion for 12 months for 82.1%, the number of women having two

times of abortion accounted for only 17.9%.

Source: Survey result about changes in population and family planning, 2005

The ratio of abortion times in Viet Nam, 2005 (%)

13

The number of rural women having one time of abortion was bigger than that of urban women

(82.2% comparing with 81.8%). In contrast, the rate of urban people having 2 times is higher

than rural city’s (18.2 % comparing to 17.8%).

Source: Survey result of changes in population and family planning, 2005

The rate of number of abortion times of married women from 15 - 49 for 12 months before

research by rural/urban area (%)

Source: Survey result of changes in population and family planning, 2005

The rate of number of abortion times of married women from 15 - 49 for 12 months before

research by age groups (%)

14

Women group of the age from 15 - 19 having one time of abortion accounted for 92.6%. The rate

of abortion in women 15-19 is the highest because this is when they need to continue education,

unable to afford to raise a child, no in stable relationship, so women choose abortion as a

method. The more women get older, the rate of women having 2 times and more of abortion

increase from 7.4% in teenager to 72% and 38.1% in middle age.

Chapter IV: Preference

1. Phá Thai Ở Nữ Vị Thành Niên, Adolessent’s abortion, Phạm Thanh Hải, Huỳnh Thị Thu

Thủy, Từ Dũ Hospital.

2. Poverty, Gender, And Youth; The Role of Abortion in the Last Stag of Fertility Decline in

Vietnam; Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan and Sajeda Amin; Working Paper No. 15;

2009.

3. ABORTION IN PRESENT DAY VIETNAM, Nguyen Thanh Binh; International Journal of

Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences January 2012, Vol. 2, No. 1 ISSN:

2222-6990 .

4. Facts on Induced Abortion In the United States; Guttamacher Institute.

5. TỔNG ĐIỀU TRA DÂN SỐ VÀ NHÀ Ở VIỆT NAM 2009 – TỶ SỐ GIỚI TÍNH HY SINH

Ở VIỆT NAM; CÁC BẰNG CHỨNG MỚI VỀ THỰC TRẠNG, XU HƯỚNG VÀ NHỮNG

KHÁC BIỆT; BỘ KẾ HOẠCH VÀ ĐẦU TƯ; TỔNG CỤC THỐNG KÊ, May, 2011.

6. NGHIÊN CỨU QUAN NIỆM, HÀNH VI TÌNH DỤC VÀ SỨC KHỎE SINH SẢN Ở VỊ

THÀNH NIÊN; HUYỆN CHÍ LINH, TỈNH HẢI DƢƠNG, 2006 – 2009; NGUYỄN VĂN

NGHỊ; HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2011.

7. http://www.lifenews.com/2013/01/18/55772015-abortions-in-america-since-roe-vs-wade-

in-1973/

15

8. http://www.lifenews.com/2006/04/03/nat-2184/

9. http://www.baomoi.com/Ty-le-vo-sinh-tai-Viet-Nam-da-gia-tang-dang-lo-

ngai/82/10682385.epi

10. Wikipedia.com