Low paid jobs for Burmese migrants are plentiful—but no babies, please... MAE SOT, Thailand — "A pregnant woman sits on her hospital bed, loudly pleading for an abortion. In the same ward, another woman gazes with devotion at her own newly born child. A third woman attracts my attention because of her dark eyes, wide and innocent, in a pale face, damp with sweat. Ma Khaing is her name. She says she also wanted to abort her baby, by taking the traditional purgative kay thi pan. The herbal concoction only made her ill. The unborn baby was unharmed, although 23-year-old Ma Khaing was clearly not pleased to hear the news from medical staff at Dr Cynthia Maung?s Mae Tao clinic in the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot. She looked downcast as a medic told her the baby would survive. Ma Khaing earns 160 baht (US $5) a day working on a sugar cane plantation near Mae Sot. Pregnancy and the prospect of an infant to care for pose a real threat to her livelihood—and I?m not surprised when she says: ?I don?t want the baby. I want to work and save money.? Ma Khaing?s story is typical, according to Mae Tao staffer Naw Pine Mu. She has seen many abortion cases in her five years at the clinic. ?All are migrant women, working in the factories or in the sugar cane fields,? Naw Pine Mu says. Pregnancy and motherhood cost them their jobs and push them back into poverty..."