Thousands of teenage girls in Beijing have abortions each year,
according to teenage sex clinics.
Sources with Beijing Tian'an Hospital of Traditional Chinese
Medicine, the first in the capital to open a hotline for pregnant
teenagers, said more than 100 teenage girls received abortions
during the first three months of the year.
Of nearly 5,000 phone calls from teenagers, seven to eight
percent are from unmarried girls asking about abortion. The
proportion was only about five percent last year, said Deng Jun, a
doctor with the teenager counseling service of Beijing No.2
Hospital.
The total number of teenage abortions in the capital is not
known.
"Girls who have abortions are considerably younger. Most of them
are middle school students aged 14 to 15," said Deng, adding the
youngest patient to come for an abortion was a 13-year-old and some
girls had abortions many times.
"Two years ago, teenage pregnancy mainly happened to college and
high school students," he said.
The number of abortions peaks during the Spring Festival, May
Day or National Day holidays and in the final term of the academic
year, Deng said, adding that sex education at school and in the
family is wholly inadequate with young people nowadays having their
first sexual experiences at a much earlier age.
Sex education has always been a low priority in schools, and
parents are often reluctant to talk about the still-taboo
issue.
A survey conducted by Professor Huo Jinzhi from the medical
school of Suzhou University showed 4.6 percent of middle school
students had had sex compared with 4.2 percent in high schools.
In September 2004, the country for the first time included sex
and reproduction knowledge in the formal school curriculum.
(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2007)