Kathmandu, Oct. 17 -- When a mentally impaired 21-year-old woman from Sindhupalchok was referred to the Paropakar Maternity and Women's Hospital about two weeks ago for an abortion, doctors at the hospital duly conducted the abortion as the pregnancy was in the second trimester and the woman's health was frail. But doctors went a step further and implanted the woman with Norplant, a hormonal contraceptive.

"We placed implants in the woman to avoid repeated pregnancies," Suku Lama, chief of the post-abortion clinic and one-stop crisis management centre at the hospital, told the Post.

According to Lama, the woman had already undergone several abortions in the past, with most of the pregnancies resulting from rape. She had even given birth...