Five-year sentence reflects failure of healthcare, protection, and compassion

THE Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy is deeply disappointed and dismayed by the five-year prison sentence imposed on a 21-year-old Indonesian woman in Sarawak after she attempted to end her pregnancy using misoprostol without medical supervision.

The reported circumstances are tragic. The pregnancy was already at 27 weeks, the child was delivered prematurely and died five days later. This makes the case different from an early medical abortion.