Debated in Parliament on 13 Apr 2015.
Mr Alex Yam asked the Minister for Health whether he can provide an update on the public consultation exercise on the criteria for pre-abortion counselling.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) carried out a month-long public consultation exercise in November 2014 on the criteria for pre-abortion counselling. We sought feedback from the public on whether we should extend pre-abortion counselling to all pregnant women seeking termination of pregnancy (TOP) in Singapore. Currently, mandatory pre-abortion counselling only applies to women who satisfy the criteria as set out in the Guidelines on TOP.
Feedback was received through online channels and through focus group discussions with various stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, social workers and non-governmental organisations. There was overall support for pre-abortion counselling to be extended to all pregnant women seeking TOP in Singapore so that these women can make an informed decision on whether to undergo an abortion.
MOH will thus be extending pre-abortion counselling to all pregnant women seeking TOP in Singapore, regardless of their nationality, educational status and number of children, with effect from 17 April 2015.
There will be other enhancements made to the pre-abortion counselling programme. First, existing abortion counsellors will be required to attend a refresher course once every two years to update their counselling skills and techniques. The refresher course will also cater to former abortion counsellors who have not been actively providing counselling for the past two years and are keen to resume their services.
Second, MOH will lay out the recommended components of pre-abortion and post-abortion counselling in the updated Guidelines on Termination of Pregnancy. These components include medical, psychosocial and emotional aspects. Third, we will update the abortion counselling materials to be used during pre-abortion counselling.
MOH conducted a briefing for the abortion institutions on the various enhancements on 7 April 2015. In addition, a summary of the feedback received from the public consultation and the enhancements to be implemented have been put up on the MOH website.
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