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Outrage in the north over ‘abortion tourism’

By Simon Bahceli
Published on August 4, 2012

FEARS THAT an impending ban on abortion in Turkey would send pregnant women flocking to the north for terminations grew yesterday after revelations that an Istanbul-based tourism company had begun advertising “abortion tours” to the breakaway state.

The revelation appeared in Turkey’s Hurriyet, which reported that a company named Baracuda Tourism was being disciplined by the Turkish Travel Agents Association (TURSAB) for offering a product that was deemed “unethical, indecent and against Turkish tradition”.

Arguments over whether Turkey will go ahead with plans to ban abortion on demand have been raging since a landmark speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May in which he described abortion as “murder”.

Although his comments sparked outrage among women’s rights groups in Turkey and the north, Erdogan remains committed to outlawing abortion on demand in his country. Currently a termination is legal up to the tenth week of pregnancy. However, during his May speech Erdogan said laws were being drawn up to ban or restrict the practice.

No plans exist however to ban abortion in the north, leading to fears that women in Turkey with unwanted pregnancies would travel to the north of Cyprus to terminate. The north already caters for a Turkish market in fertility treatments and gender selection processes that are illegal in Turkey.

Responding to an expected increase in demand for terminations in the north, Istanbul-based Baracuda Tourism recently began offering three-night stays in abortion clinics in the north for around €700. However, the firm’s hopes of cashing in on what it saw as a new tourism growth sector were dashed after TURSAB moved to discipline the company. TURSAB added that it had taken the issue to the Turkish Minister of Tourism Ertugrul Gunay and claimed the minister had “reacted sternly” and that he was “adamantly opposed” to the creation of an abortion tourism sector in the north of Cyprus.

Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Irsen Kucuk also saw fit to comment on the issue yesterday saying he would not encourage the development of such a tourism sector.

“If a person needs an abortions for medical reasons, that is not an issue for us, but that does not mean that we will restructure our medical provisions to create a new sector,” he said.

Turkish Cypriot doctors, meanwhile, have also made their position clear on the abortion issue. Earlier, head of the physician’s union Suphi Hudaoglu warned that a ban on abortions in Turkey could lead to an “undesirable” flood of pregnant Turkish women heading to the north.

“In the same way as the closing down of casinos in Turkey led to them relocating here, abortion clinics will relocate,” he said.

Currently, abortion law in the north is the same as in Turkey, meaning that up to the tenth week of pregnancy abortion is available on demand. For abortions after the tenth week, approval is needed from an “ethical council’ of doctors. Hudaoglu also warned that any move by the Turkish government to implement a ban on abortion in the north as well as in Turkey would lead his organisation to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR)

“No one should think that we condone or support abortion, but we are definitely against this right being taken away from women,” he said.

Defending his business venture, head of Baracuda Tourism Cem Polatoglu said he had done “nothing illegal” and that once he delivered patients to the hospital, his company was not involved in the medical part of the tour.

He said he believed the opposition to his venture sprung, not from moral outrage, but a desire among his competitors to put him out of business.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/abortion-tou ... m/20120804