The Siraya people were observed to practice mandatory abortion by Dutch colonizers, which modern scholars have found to be part of a taboo that a women's pregnancy would adversely impact her husbands performance in war.
This reflected a broader pattern of gendered separation until the man became recognized as an elder at the age of forty, after which it was societally permissible for his wife, often younger by a number of years, to carry a pregnancy to term.
[5] While the Genetic Health Act was drafted in 1971, its passage was stalled for thirteen years due to "ethics concerns" until 1984, when the Chiang Ching-kuo government prioritized family planning and eugenicist measures in response to increasing fears of overpopulation.
[17][18] Unlike other countries, there is not a major debate over abortion in Taiwan; anti-abortion movements were largely "nonexistent" before 2002 and rose in the mid-2000s to support the proposal of mandatory counseling and waiting.
Thus, some teenagers have conducted Buddhist and Taoist post-abortion rituals to bless the fetus after the abortion to reduce the parent's guilt and karma, sparking varied responses from the religious establishment for the practice.