Abortion

This morning the local newspaper in my hometown reported that a man who pretended to be an obstetrician was arrested by the police. He “helped” to do abortion to some helpless girls who apparently became pregnant outside the wedlock. No matter what, in Indonesia, getting pregnant without getting married first is considered something very shameful. To cover the shame, those girls looked for help to do the abortion. Most of them are about 17-19; the paper said.

The number of girls getting pregnant outside the wedlock has increased sharply recently. I believe this is one result of the globalization; where people easily access any news, information, including habit, tradition, “culture”, etc from any country all over the world. That Indonesia is a religious country, basing anything from religious perspective is only façade culture. The old generation who still sticks to this false impression thinks that sex is something taboo so that they don’t want to talk about this openly with their children. They would rather think that sex is something natural and people will learn about it naturally especially after they get married. They are worried if their children know about sex before a certain age bracket, they will try doing it. They think that by covering about sex, they can “save” their children from that tendency.

Some decades ago, perhaps it worked well to them. However in this globalization era? With its limitless access with internet?

I believe without their parents or teachers’ guidance, those teenagers will get a wrong source. In Islam, the time for teenagers to be considered grown up is very clear; for girls when they get their first period; while for boys when they get their first wet dream. It can be considered as the best time for the parents especially to start telling them about sex openly.

I opine that those girls who get pregnant outside the wedlock don’t get enough sex education from their parents; worse thing, they don’t communicate well with their parents so that they are not open to their parents. While at the same time, with their easy access to the internet, they get to know that their fellow teenagers from the other side of the world have known sex in that teenaged years. FYI, Indonesian people always accuse western countries as free countries where people have sex freely outside the wedlock. Perhaps those teenagers think, “If American teenagers can do it, why can’t we? This is modern era. Having sex can be done before getting married. It’s ok with that.”

Indonesian people who usually consider the west as more modern make those teenagers want to be labeled as modern by doing what the teenagers in the west do, without thinking of the impact to them. When the teenagers in the west do that (read è having sex outside the wedlock), I assume that their parents already talk about sex openly with them; including give them some suggestion how to avoid pregnancy before they are ready to get babies. In Indonesia? Of course it is not like that. By thinking that sex is something taboo, of course the (conventional) parents don’t talk about sex with their teenagers. The result? Well, just like what the news reported this morning. More and more girls get pregnant before getting married. And to avoid the shame, they go to doctors, either the real obstetrician or the fake one, to have the abortion.

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The picture was taken from this site.