In this SCMP article, the journalist discussed with various organizations and professionals, including Mother’s Choice, on the issue of crisis pregnancies amid COVID times. Here’s the full story – Abortions on the rise in Hong Kong, say NGOs and doctors amid concern over pregnant teens in distress | South China Morning Post.
Mothers Choice, a charity which helps pregnant teenagers as well as children without families, has also seen an increase in the number of girls wanting abortions.
Typically, about 100 girls call its hotline every quarter, with about a third saying they want an abortion. Between April and June, more than two fifths of the callers were considering an abortion.
It is currently helping 44 girls through their pregnancy crises, and its hostel which can take 10 girls is full.
Chief executive Alia Eyres says girls in Hong Kong are particularly vulnerable as the disruptions of the pandemic followed on from last year’s social unrest.
Many of the girls seeking help at the NGO describe feeling “a sense of hopelessness about the economy, the political situation, and their future”, she says.
The cases handled by the NGO have been getting more complex, she adds, and all 10 girls at its hostel now are homeless, without a safe place to return to after they give birth.
Unmarried pregnant teenagers face stigma or rejection by their parents and peers, and the situation is worse for those with low educational levels who must deal with poverty and unemployment as they cope with being single parents.
Eyres says one teenager the NGO is helping has been in residential care since she was born, and has just given birth to her second child. “When girls grow up without parents or a trusted adult, without somebody to not just love them but also protect them and help them see their worth and plan for their life, it leaves them much more vulnerable to getting pregnant as teenagers.”
Sue Ho, a social worker at Mothers Choice, says her job is to help pregnant teenagers make their own decisions.
She recalls a girl who struggled to tell her parents she was pregnant, but after doing so, decided to keep the baby. Another girl felt coerced by her father to have an abortion. After some time apart from the family, she chose to terminate her pregnancy, realising she could not support a baby on her own and needed to continue her studies.