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Heart and Soul: Indonesia's Abortion Secret: Indonesian Abortion

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05/06/2015 GMT

Indonesian Abortion

Indonesia's Abortion Secret

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Indonesia's Abortion Secret, Indonesian Abortion

Exploring the attitudes to abortion in Indonesia

Karishma Vaswani explores attitudes to abortion in Indonesia, which has one of the highest abortion rates in the world.

Despite being a taboo subject, more than two million abortions are performed in Indonesia every year and many of these terminations are carried out in secret. Islamic law does not encourage abortion, but unlike the Catholic Church it does not absolutely forbid it, which has led to a clash of beliefs in this overwhelmingly Islamic, but secular country. 

In this edition Karishma Vaswani visits some of the many clinics that offer Indonesia’s women abortions well after the 40-day cut-off point, and explores how the attitude of the government to this situation might be explained by increasing influence of a conservative interpretation of Islam.

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