Mien condemns dumping of babies

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Women's Roles Mien Sugandhi condemned yesterday the dumping of aborted fetuses and dead babies.

She accused those involved in the abortions of being inhuman and immoral, and urged police and related agencies to thoroughly investigate the case.

The people who conducted the abortions and later dumped the bodies could be charged under Article 341-349 of the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, she said.

However, Mien acknowledged that the 1992 Health Law No. 23 Article No. 15 allows abortions for certain medical reasons.

"Surely it should not be occurring in such large numbers and for extramarital reasons," she said.

On Friday, the bodies of 11 babies and fetuses were discovered in three plastic bags which had been dumped at a garbage site on Jl. Warakas in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

Mien reiterated that mothers who have an abortion should be held responsible for their actions.

She accused the women of being ignorant about their babies.

"They want to find a shortcut by aborting their babies and they don't care about what the doctors or the clinics do with their aborted babies."

City police chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata said that police had questioned three medical personnel in connection with the dumping.

A nurse and a midwife from North Jakarta, and a forensic doctor were summoned by police to provide information about the alleged abortion practices.

Hamami rejected reports Monday which claimed that police had arrested three doctors from a clinic in Central Jakarta for allegedly offering abortion services.

"The investigation is still underway and the people who have been summoned to police stations have not been arrested. They are being asked to give us information," he said.

A team of forensic doctors from University of Indonesia confirmed yesterday that the babies had been aborted.

Doctor Djaja S. Atmadja said that one of the dumped babies had gestated for eight months and its lung condition indicated that it was born alive.

"But we still can't figure out how it died."

He said the team also found some body parts of four fetuses aborted between five and eight months gestation; four fetuses of less than five months gestation, the heads of two fetuses, five legs and three backbones.

He said that further microscopic testing and probably DNA profiling would be conducted.

"If the body parts come from different individuals then the number may be as high as 22."

The plastic bags with the babies and fetuses, also contained women's clothes and medical instruments believed to have been used in abortion practices, he said.

There were two catheters, seven sets of laminaria (a kind of seaweed) and 23 pills used for abortion purposes in final-stage pregnancies.

"Such abortions can be carried out within 15 minutes, so you can imagine how many babies a clinic would need to dump if they had more than 20 clients every day," he said.

A legal clinic in Central Jakarta could abort 60 pregnancies a day, he said. (04/06/cst)