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Tonga
ABORTION POLICY
Grounds on which abortion is permitted:
To save the life of the woman
To preserve physical health
To preserve mental health
Rape or incest
Foetal impairment
Economic or social reasons
Available on request
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
Additional requirements:
Information is not readily available.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CONTEXT
Government view on fertility level:
Satisfactory
Government intervention concerning fertility level:
To maintain
Government policy on contraceptive use:
Direct support provided
Percentage of currently married women using
modern contraception (aged 15-49):
..
Total fertility rate (1995-2000):
..
Age-specific fertility rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-19, 1995-2000):
..
Government has expressed particular concern about:
Morbidity and mortality resulting from induced abortion
Complications of childbearing and childbirth
..
..
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births, 1990):
National
Oceania
..
680
Female life expectancy at birth (1995-2000):
..
Source: Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.
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Tonga
BACKGROUND
Sections 103-105 of the Criminal Offences Act regulate abortion in Tonga. Under these sections, there are
no exceptions to a prohibition against the performance of all abortions. A person who with intent to procure a
miscarriage administers any drug or noxious thing or unlawfully uses any means is subject to up to seven
years’ imprisonment. A woman who undertakes the same act or allows it to be undertaken with respect to her
with intent to cause her own miscarriage is subject to up to three years’ imprisonment. Nonetheless, under
general criminal law principles of necessity, an abortion can be legally performed to save the life of a pregnant
woman.
Since the 1960s, the Government has strongly supported maternal and child health care and family
planning. Two voluntary organizations, the Tonga Family Planning Association and the Catholic Family
Planning Centre, have been offering family planning services throughout most of the country. By the mid1980s, about 28 per cent of women of reproductive age practised family planning. By the late 1990s, the
International Planned Parenthood Federation reported that an estimated 70 per cent of the population had some
knowledge of family planning.
Tonga comprises 36 inhabited islands; remoteness thus presents a continuing barrier to the delivery of
reproductive health care services, including family planning. The low rate of contraceptive usage is also
attributed to enduring traditional, cultural and religious beliefs. In 1999, the Government expressed its concern
that the sustainability of population policies and programmes was threatened by the lack of adequate human
and financial resources, particularly in the face of emerging challenges in the areas of adolescent pregnancy,
sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.
Tonga has a relatively high total fertility rate, but it has been offset by heavy emigration under the impact
of inflation and unemployment, increasingly producing what is thought to be a negative population growth rate.
The World Health Organization estimated the annual population growth rate average for the entire 1990-1999
period to be 0.3 per cent.
Source: Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United
Nations Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.
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