JINHA

ISTANBUL –Women's shelter foundation Purple Roof has responded to Turkey's Ministry of Health attempts to delegitimize their recent report, which showed that only 3 out of 37 public hospitals told women they offered abortions, as provided for in Turkish law.

Purple Roof, founded to create a life free of violence for women and children through solidarity, based the report "Do You Offer Abortions? No We Don't" on research at 37 public hospitals in Istanbul. Purple Roof researchers telephoned hospitals and asked whether they could get an abortion at the hospital. The report found that all but three of the state hospitals, which are legally authorized for up to 10 weeks on the women's request and thereafter by medical necessity, refused abortions to callers.

Now Purple Roof has come out against Ministry of Health statements calling the research illegitimate because the information was private.

"Whether or not abortion is conducted at a hospital is not 'private' information, as the Ministry of Health claims," Purple Roof said in their written response. "This is information about a medical operation that needs to be reached as immediately as the answer to a question like 'is prostate surgery conducted at your hospital?' Therefore, whoever or whatever department answers the phone at a state hospital, it is important that women who want abortions can quickly access that information."

The Ministry of Health also claimed that there was "no limitation found in the availability of voluntary abortions at hospitals tied to our department." Purple Roof, however, demanded to know why birth control and abortion services that the Ministry had once provided were now limited in practice.

"If not state hospitals, where can women who want an abortion go?" asked the foundation. "We await a list of such hospitals being released to the public."

World Health Organization research has shown that policies limiting access to affordable and safe abortions cause risks and mortality in women. Purple Roof said that women's safety was a primary concern of their organization, for which they have fought for years.

The report was motivated in part by the rates of violence Purple Roof activists saw in the cases of women forced to give birth to an unplanned child. Another major concern was the many deaths from medical complications faced by women who have been unable to obtain medically necessary abortion—cases that have been reported frequently in cities across Turkey.

"We will be closely following whether or not Ministry officials are applying both national and international law," Purple Roof reported.

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