About 30 abortions take place in Singapore's hospitals and clinics each day.

Last year, there were 12,222 abortions compared to 11,933 in 2007.

Despite the procedure becoming increasingly common, not much is known about what happens to aborted foetuses here.

The Sunday Times investigated and found that while most private clinics dispose of aborted foetuses as part of medical waste, two restructured hospitals, the National University Hospital and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH), take special care to cremate or bury those which are between 13 and 24 weeks old.

If the baby leaves the womb after 24 weeks, it is considered a stillborn baby and will have to be registered with the Registry of Births.

Before 13 weeks, foetuses are usually expelled in pieces and there will rarely be a complete human form, said Dr Jen Shek Wai, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Women's Clinic of Singapore.

'All we have is a mixture of blood, tissue and placental products,' he said.

'Technically, it is possible to preserve the blood, tissue and placental products in a mixture of formalin, but this has such a macabre aura about it that nobody has requested for it.'

These young foetuses are classified as medical waste and disposed of by special waste companies.

At the hospitals, before the abortion takes place, the mother is given the option to claim her foetus or leave it to the hospital to make the necessary arrangements.

It is uncommon for parents to claim aborted foetuses. At KKH, only 10 per cent of aborted foetuses are claimed by their parents.

Once the abortion is done, unclaimed foetuses will be classified according to whether they come from Muslim or non-Muslim mothers.

Foetuses from non-Muslim mothers will be sent to the mortuary, where they are collected by undertakers every few weeks and then cremated at the crematorium.

Foetuses from Muslim mothers are claimed by the Muslim Trust Fund Association, which carries out burials for Muslims without family.

Muslim casket companies will collect these foetuses from the hospitals once every fortnight and take them to the Chua Chu Kang Muslim cemetery.

There, they will be washed clean, wrapped in white cloth and buried at the children's section of the cemetery in mass foetus graves.

Ten days ago, 38 foetuses were buried at the cemetery over two consecutive days.

Said a gravedigger who wanted to be known only as Mr Japar: 'Sometimes, as many as 20 foetuses share the half-plot intended for children. Unlike the other plots, these grave plots usually have no names on them.'

Hospitals and undertakers do their best to respect the foetuses by giving them as proper a farewell as possible.

At the National University Hospital, for example, unclaimed foetuses will each get its own little lace-lined specially made casket before it is sent to the mortuary, and later, the crematorium. Patients are not charged extra for this service.

One casket operator, who declined to be named, said he usually marks the graves of the foetuses he buries with a colourful pinwheel.

'It's sad when a grave is unmarked and unnamed. They may be foetuses but I see them as little babies,' he said.

The majority of abortions are done on adult women who are not married, said doctors. Teenage abortions accounted for 1,289 of last year's total 12,222.

Women who have had abortions before told The Sunday Times that they have no idea what happened to their aborted foetuses.

Said Ms M. Ang, 27, a single who had an abortion at a private clinic after 16 weeks of pregnancy: 'I was too distraught about being pregnant. It was the last thing on my mind to ask what would happen to the baby.'

Said another single, Miss Siti R., 30, who has had two abortions: 'I'd rather not know what happened to the foetuses. I just want to move on with my life.'

Dr Jen believes it is best that mothers do not know what will happen to their aborted foetuses or 'revisit' them at burial or cremation sites or through even ultrasound pictures.

He said: 'It only perpetuates guilt and all the negative feelings associated with the procedure.'

The gravedigger, Mr Japar, feels otherwise.

He said in Malay: 'People should know what happens to the foetuses they abort. Maybe then they will not abort so freely.'

This article was first published in The Sunday Times.