Five years after the Criminal Code was amended to legalize abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy, abortion access remains limited in Thailand. Patients report being reprimanded and made to feel stigmatized by medical professionals. Meanwhile, doctors cite moral issues as grounds for refusing to perform abortions and hospitals refuse to disclose that they do in fact provide the service.

As an answer to these constraints, the abortion rights group Tamtang Foundation has opened Tarntawan Clinic, aiming to find a friendlier way of providing abortion care and to widen access to abortion in Thailand.

Tamtang Foundation's office. On the first floor is Tarntawan Clinic.

The clinic is located on the first floor of the Foundation’s office. Warmly lit, the reception has a bright yellow sofa and flower-shaped throw pillows. There are no white coats or uniforms in sight.

Dr Chutinart Chinudomporn, one of the clinic’s doctors, while showing reporters around the clinic during its opening, said that the space was designed to be as unlike a traditional clinic as possible. Women have been performing and receiving abortions since ancient times before it became medicalized, she said, and the team behind Tarntawan Clinic did not want patients to feel like they are seeing a doctor.

According to an exhibition held at KINJAI Contemporary gallery on 7 March to mark the clinic’s official opening, Tarntawan Clinic is the result of Tamtang’s 15 years’ experience in campaigning for abortion rights and counselling individuals seeking an abortion. Knowing the constraints, the Foundation wants to set a new standard for abortion care in Thailand that is beyond “safe and legal” but also caring, respectful, and accessible.

The Tarntawan Clinic now provides medical abortion care up to the 12^th week of pregnancy via a telemedicine system. Counsellors will chat with patients on the Line instant messaging application, and take a history to determine the gestational age and determine whether the person made their own decision. They will also determine whether the person is seeking the procedure for themselves, as counsellors will not speak to partners or family members in order to prevent forced abortions. The medication will then be delivered to the individual. Meanwhile, the clinic’s counsellors will be following up on their condition and are available to counsel them on other issues – from being fired from jobs for getting pregnant to being sold illegal medication – until their pregnancy test comes back negative.

Five years on, access remains limited

Maps showing the number of medical facilities offering abortion in Thailand. 
Green means there are facilities in those provinces, while empty spaces means there is none.

In 2021, Thailand legalized abortion up to the 12^th week of pregnancy or up to the 20^th week after a required examination and counselling process. It is now covered by the National Health Security Office NHSO under its “gold card” universal healthcare scheme as well as the Social Security Scheme.

However, access remains limited. In 2026, only 156 hospitals and clinics in 55 provinces provide abortion care, forcing many women to travel out of their home province to get the procedure. In some provinces, there are only private clinics which charge thousands of baht for an abortion – a fee which increases with each week that goes by in the pregnancy.

And while people can get the procedure for free under one of the two state healthcare schemes at public hospitals, most hospitals don’t publicize the fact that they perform abortions and only take patients referred by NGOs like Tamtang or the 1663 HIV and unplanned pregnancy hotline. Anyone who simply walks in and asks about the procedure will be refused or even reprimanded by the staff.

For persons insured under the Social Security Scheme, it is still unclear where they can get an abortion and have it covered by the Scheme. Tamtang and other NGOs filed a petition on 6 March demanding that the Scheme ensures access to abortion for insured individuals at hospitals in its network.

Some hospitals set requirements which are beyond the law, such as requiring patients aged over 15 to bring a guardian when they are legally exempted or to bring a husband. Some require patients to consent to sterilization before they can get an abortion, or to have the procedure approved by a committee of five doctors before it can be performed.

Meanwhile, as the Thai government shifted its focus to raising the country’s declining birthrate, abortion access policies were disregarded. Dr Chutinart said that any policies to do with increasing the population, such as infertility treatment or other child-related policies, now take precedence over abortion care. She said that while these policies are not bad, it means abortion-related policies fall to the wayside. Despite the efforts of NGOs, the government is not trying to make it easier to get an abortion. It has not released a list of hospitals and clinics that provide abortion care or clarified how to get the procedure.

Dr Chutinart Chinudomporn

Another obstacle that lies in the way is social stigma and bias among medical professionals. Dr Chutinart recalled that during a meeting between Tamtang and the Bangkok Metropolitan Council about abortion access in Bangkok, a high-ranking person said that women must be “sufficiently pitiful” or they will not be performing abortion, as if the woman’s story must be worth the doctors “getting blood on their hands”. It was the moment she decided to open a clinic with Tamtang.

Social stigma has been the cause of trauma for the clinic’s patients. One told a counsellor that they “felt empty” after getting an abortion. Dr Chutinart said that the stigma has been repeated so often that even the word “abortion” itself is rarely ever used. Medical facilities avoid saying that they perform abortions. Instead, they will say that they offer “pregnancy termination counselling,” which led Dr Chutinart to question whether these facilities also offer abortion or just the counselling. Even the NHSO says that it covers “prevention of unsafe termination of pregnancy” – a confusing term that takes several reads to understand.

And when the term itself is avoided, Dr Chutinart said, it becomes a taboo. Abortion is pushed into the realm of ghost stories, where tales of women being followed by the ghosts of babies they aborted are common. As a doctor, Dr Chutinart said, she could not imagine what these ghosts would look like as aborted foetuses look like a clump of jelly to her. She said she does not know where to begin eliminating the bias, but she believes there needs someone who stands up for abortion rights, for people’s rights to choose for themselves without having to carry the stigma.

For Dr Chutinart, the progress has been too slow. Medical professionals remained trapped in the same discussions about moral issues and do not understand that their patients have the right to choose. Section 301 of the Criminal Code has not been repealed, criminalizing abortions performed outside the legal parameters. Meanwhile, the government has not tried hard enough to change people’s minds.

“Changing the law should lead to change in society,” she said, “but instead, society is stuck where it was, with access in only some cases.”

Lacking medical school curriculum further limits access

Campaign pamphelts on Tarntawan Clinic's reception counter. In front is the box of medication used for medical abortions - a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, which is now recommended as the gold standard for safety and effectiveness and used all over the world.

Dr Chutinart said that, while younger doctors do not carry the same bias against abortion as the older generation, some do not even know that abortion is now legal. Her friends asked her if she is afraid of going to jail or if the clinic is allowed to openly advertise its services. Others said they are happy to offer abortion care but aren’t sure of how to start because they are not specialists.

Dr Chutinart said that very little is taught about abortion in medical schools. Most medical students are taught how to consult patients and the different methods of terminating a pregnancy. In most hospitals, abortion is performed by vacuum aspiration, but since medical students are not taught to perform the procedure and only see it in textbooks, they do not feel confident enough as doctors to perform it. She believes that the mindset of young doctors would change if abortion were discussed in medical schools without moral issues being raised.

A doctor does not have to be an OB/GYN to safely provide abortion care, Dr Chutinart said, and the law does not require a specialist, only that abortion must be performed by a licensed medical practitioner. She also said that, because of the stereotypical idea of illegal abortion, doctors are afraid that there will be complications even though the medication now used for medical abortions is very safe and has a high success rate. If it is administered by physicians and with proper follow-up, the chance of a serious complication is slim to none.

Between August – December 2025, the Tarntawan Clinic saw 758 patients, excluding those who later miscarried, decide against abortion, or with whom the clinic lost contact. Almost all had a successful abortion. A few whose abortion was incomplete were referred to a hospital.

Dr Chutinart said that if doctors believe the procedures are safe, more would be willing to perform them or at least treat complications. She noted, however, that patients who experience complications after getting an abortion are being denied treatment.

Abortion providers are racing against time, Dr Chutinart said. A higher gestational age means that patients have a harder time getting the procedure and face more risk. She proposes that, to ensure that there is as little delay as possible, abortion medication should be sold over the counter and used under the guidance of pharmacist. This is how the medication is provided in many countries, such as France, although she noted that the policy is changing in several places as governments become more right-wing. Nevertheless, she said that Thailand has over 5000 pharmacies, and even if only 30% agree to provide abortion medication, it would already be a higher number than the number of hospitals and make abortion more accessible.

Choosing between employment and motherhood

Campaign pamphlets on displayed at the exhibition at KINJAI Contemporary. One says "Safe abortion = human right".

The Tarntawan Clinic has now been operating for 7 months. It has seen over 1400 patients, around 70% of whom were Thais. 20% were migrant workers, while the remaining 10% were foreigners who came to Thailand because abortion is still illegal in their home country. And among Thai patients, there were ethnic and stateless people for whom government healthcare schemes are inaccessible because they do not have a Thai citizen ID.

The majority of patients are also not teenagers. Dr Chutinart said that most were between 20 – 30 years old, and many already had children. 90% were already using some form of birth control, but those methods had failed.

Not only that, Dr Chutinart said that many patients decided to get an abortion because they would lose their jobs if they got pregnant. Some employers have been conducting random tests among women employees. Pregnant workers would be fired or forced to resign. Some didn’t even have time for the procedure because they work 30 days per month and can’t take sick leave.

Although Tamtang originally wanted to offer the clinic’s services for free, it is still waiting to register with the NHSO and has been told that the NHSO is currently not taking more facilities into its network. This means that patients would have to pay out of pocket as the clinic has not been included in the Gold Card scheme. It currently charges 1500 baht for a medical abortion up to the 10^th week of pregnancy and 1700 between the 10^th and 12^th week, which is already much lower than other private clinics. Even so, Dr Chutinart said many patients had to pay in instalments because the fee was too much for them to pay at once, while some said they borrowed money to pay for their abortion.

“Issues concerning abortion are not a medical issue. This clinic is really run by counsellors, and the main problem raised during counselling is employment, which is the most oppressive. How is it possible that patients are getting an abortion because they must choose their jobs before their personal lives?” Dr Chutinart said.

“We live in a society where the gaps between incomes and class are very wide. If we see this issue only at the level of the individual women, it is a very superficial way of looking at it. There are so many layers to it that it is now a class struggle.”