Women with unplanned pregnancies who must continue their pregnancies often face complex and difficult problems depending on their life context, such as “continuing pregnancy in school,” “continuing pregnancy in the community,” and “pregnancy while in prison/juvenile detention.”
However, everyone must face the pressures and challenges that come their way. Therefore, when a woman decides to continue her pregnancy, regardless of her life context, the period from continuing pregnancy to childbirth becomes a critical time in life that society neglects and overlooks. From the experience of providing assistance and services for women with unplanned pregnancies who continue their pregnancies, it can be summarized that:
(1) Service providers must deal with the emotional instability of those experiencing problems throughout the assistance process. Therefore, service providers must understand these conditions and situations.
(2) A key skill for service providers is knowledge and the ability to connect existing services scattered across various agencies. This is because resolving the life situations of women requires a variety of services depending on their life conditions.
The health and social welfare service systems related to this issue find that various agencies have set service standards for women with unplanned pregnancies, but there is still a lack of clear practical implementation. Service units focus on working within their agency’s service framework, lacking integration, making services unable to address the complex problems of women. It remains a reactive approach within their agency’s service framework.
Therefore, to provide services and protect the rights of women with unplanned pregnancies who continue their pregnancies, policy work is needed to make continuing pregnancy a quality pregnancy according to standards. Mothers should receive care, and when the baby is born, it should be healthy and safe. The development of assistance and rights protection guidelines must be linked to the life stages of women who need different services, especially providing services to support emotional and mental well-being. There must be a process of cognitive development to understand one’s life and future. The work must be multidisciplinary to align with each life stage of women facing problems and extend to caring for the newborn.
4 Policy Proposals, Version 2, to Drive the Development of “Service Guidelines and Rights Protection for Adolescents and Women with Unplanned Pregnancies Who Continue Their Pregnancies”
(1) Expedite the issuance of ministerial regulations and clear practices to protect the rights of women with unplanned pregnancies according to the Prevention and Solution of Adolescent Pregnancy Act, B.E. 2559, including Section 5 of the Act, which grants adolescents the right to make decisions related to reproductive health. It is found that there is still a contradiction with child protection laws regarding granting parents the authority to make decisions on behalf of minors. The Ministry of Education has issued ministerial regulations specifying the types of educational institutions and their operations according to the Prevention and Solution of Adolescent Pregnancy Act, but Article 7, paragraph one, allows children to take a break from education during pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal care as appropriate and to provide flexible education according to potential. There is a risk that educational institutions may use this exception to temporarily suspend education. The Department of Local Administration should expedite the creation of a manual on standards for preventing and solving unplanned pregnancy problems for local areas to help drive work concretely and have legal support.
(2) Develop strategies for social welfare work for women with unplanned pregnancies who must continue their pregnancies and develop a systematic approach to reproductive health rights protection. The driving approach is at three levels: First, work at the local level by developing a care system using the area as a work base, such as provincial groups, to develop a database system that keeps up with problem situations. Second, connect service mechanisms from various sectors to provide quality social and health welfare by using relevant agencies as the basis for integrated work, allowing flexibility according to the strength of people in the agency and each situation, focusing on working with heart rather than just duty. Third, provide services that consider women’s needs as the main goal, with specific work for teenage mothers or women who must continue their pregnancies and the children born, recognizing the complexity of different groups, such as mothers with mental illness, disabilities, or substance abuse, who often lack care in the community, requiring community participation.
(3) Review the situation where women and adolescents with unplanned pregnancies who continue their pregnancies do not register their pregnancies in the public health system with the National Health Security Office. It is found that over 90% of women with unplanned pregnancies do not register their pregnancies or register late in pregnancy, and the age of adolescents who continue their pregnancies is decreasing. There is a high incidence of substance abuse during pregnancy, affecting the assessment of potential and readiness to continue the pregnancy.
(4) Push for a legal and justice process protection welfare system when women with unplanned pregnancies become defendants as part of the welfare system to enable women to access counseling and legal and justice process assistance in fighting cases.
Source: https://choicesforum.org/ Policy Proposal Version 2 to Drive the Development of “Service Guidelines and Rights Protection for Adolescents and Women with Unplanned Pregnancies Who Continue Their Pregnancies” proposed by the Network Supporting Women’s Choices with Unplanned Pregnancies, March 14, 2019