HEALTH AND NATIONAL CONCERNS: SELECTIVE ABORTIONS THREATEN ARMENIA’S DEMOGRAPHY
Vahe Ter-Minasyan
Health | 24.11.11 | 14:05
Selective abortions – the practice of keeping a fetus based on it
sex – present a serious demographic problem for Armenia’s future
oncologist-gynecologist Vahe Ter-Minasyan told the press on Wednesday.
According to Ter-Minasyan the problem stems form the fact that
Armenian families do not have more than one or two children and, by
“Armenian mentality”, one of the children must be a boy.
Since 2002 artificial interruption of early pregnancy (up to 12 weeks)
upon a woman’s request is legal in Armenia; up to 22-weeks pregnancy
can be interrupted legally for health and social reasons and with
the woman’s consent.
The specialist added, however, that apart from hospital abortions,
there are many cases of illegal abortions mainly through medication
done at home and this is a major problem. In this connection he
also stressed that if a woman doesn’t realize how much danger she
causes herself by interrupting the pregnancy on her own through drugs
“adoption of even 100 new laws” will not help.
On October 3, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) adopted the “Prenatal sex selection” resolution, which says
that the disproportion in sex selection is “alarming” in Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Albania.