New health law to address new technology, social change

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government and the House of Representatives, along with the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia are drafting a health bill which will serve as a grand regulation that accommodates social, political, scientific and technological changes.

Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi said that the bill would be designed to replace the current Law No. 23/1992 on Health and National Health System, which contains some contradictory articles.

"We hope the bill can serve as an umbrella act for all regulations dealing with health matters, especially in the era of decentralization," health minister Achmad Sujudi told The Jakarta Post.

He said the draft would provide guidelines for regional administrations to draw up bylaws on health care for people from all walks of life.

Sujudi was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day seminar on the draft jointly organized by The Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IFPPD), the House's Commission VII overseeing population and welfare affairs, the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia, and the Center of Information Study and Training (PPPI) on Thursday.

Commission VII, in its paper stated that the draft was needed to anticipate the impacts of new technology such as cloning, stem cell research, genetic engineering, and other things related to human health.

The current law only regulates technology for transplantation, transfusions, in-vitro fertilization, plastic surgery and implants.

Sanoesi Tambunan, chairman of Commission VII, said at the seminar that unlike the current law, the draft approached health as a part of human rights that should be honored.

Article 2 of the draft reads: "The Government shall guarantee that there is no discrimination against race, ethnicity, religion, spiritual beliefs, culture, gender, age, education, kinds of jobs, social status, political ideology, place of residence or sexual orientation of people who seek health care for themselves."

Sanoesi added that the draft also regulated reproductive health which was overlooked by the current health law.

"Reproductive health is not merely women's matters nor a matter of pregnancy and birth. It also deals with health reproductive organs, reproductive functions and the reproductive process," he said.

Article 57 of the draft emphasizes that people have the right to decide on their own sexual lifestyles and women are free to determine their own reproductive activity which is healthy, safe and free from coercion or violence.

Sanoesi said that a ban on abortion in the 1992 law was not effective in preventing illegal abortions because in actuality, some 30 percent of the maternal mortality rate (MMR) was caused by these.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported that the country's MMR was 390 in every 100,000 live births.

Article 60 of the draft will give the government more authority with regard to specific issues to prevent unqualified, unsafe and irresponsible abortions.

An abortion is considered unqualified, unsafe or irresponsible -- and therefore banned under the new law -- if it is conducted: (a) by coercion or without the pregnant women's consent; (b) by unlicensed medical workers; (c) without the existing profession's standards, or (d) discriminating and merely based on the women' ability to pay the expenses, ignoring their safety, the draft says.

Illegal and unsafe abortions can cause severe bleeding and infection, trauma to a woman's reproductive organs or death.

"Let's not see the ruling from a black and white point of view. It is for the sake of women's health, to protect them from severe complications caused by illegal and unsafe abortions," Sanoesi said.

Only abortions for clear medical problems are allowed under Indonesian law.