While hundreds of thousands of rich pregnant women from China come to HK to give birth, a notorious amount of HK women rush to hospitals in Shenzhen to do the opposite. Find out why.
Most of these HK women rush to Shenzhen to have an abortion. They are the kind of women who either can’t afford a legal abortion in HK or for some reason would like to stay anonymous. Sometimes, the main reason would be that they don’t want their parents to find out they have gotten pregnant. Some of these women are reported to be only 12 to 15 years old.
But in exchange for that ease, that anonymity, they take on the risk of infection, infertility and trauma, with non-existent psychological support for dealing with post-abortion blues.
This is a common scenario in Shenzhen hospitals. Several women share each room, with no curtains separating them. The walls of the ward are coated with gray, dark stains and looked in need of a paint job. They usually do about 20 abortions a day.
Women further into their term have to be admitted to the inpatient department. At the clinic, the fee for abortions is around 800 yuan (HK$1,000). The price can go up to about 3,000 yuan if patients are admitted.
The price, the nurse said, was set by the government and was the same at any public hospital in Guangdong province.
In Hong Kong, abortions at the four private hospitals that provide the service cost at least HK$14,000.
