European Union prods RP government on reproductive health

MANILA, Philippines – The European Union (EU) is prodding the government to make reproductive health (RH) more accessible to the people.

Alistair MacDonald, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, said RH is not an issue that the Philippine government can take a “hands-off” approach or abandon its responsibilities to its people.

MacDonald said it is essential for the government to be more supportive of citizens’ needs in relation to RH and devote more resources to making effective reproductive health services accessible to all.

“The simple reason for this is that this is a crucial responsibility of the Philippines to its people, to its women, and most of all, to its children,” MacDonald said during a Reproductive Health forum.

“I believe that the provision of effective and accessible RH services is a responsibility of the State towards the people of the Philippines, because the people of the Philippines, all 90 million of them, hope to have a future outside poverty, a future where eight million Filipinos do not have to emigrate to seek the employment opportunities that their own country cannot offer them,” he added.

He said it is appalling to consider the statistics of women who die in or as a consequence of childbirth or whose lives are shortened by an inability to space the children that they bear.

MacDonald also stressed the responsibility of the State towards the “children of the Philippines whose future is blighted by poor nutrition, by inadequate health-care, by limited educational facilities, by a lack of employment possibilities.”

“Of course there are many LGUs that do what they can, within the limited resources available to them. And there are many civil society groups that can and do help, with great dedication. But reproductive health is not an issue that can be left to a laissez-faire approach, or where the State can abdicate its responsibilities towards its people, its women, its children.”

MacDonald commended the work of the House and the Senate on reproductive health bills seeking to require that the State assumes its full responsibilities, and to make it possible for this to happen.

He acknowledged that RH is a sensitive issue, but stressed that the absence of an effective framework for reproductive health is in itself one of the greatest causes of abortion.

A vocal minority noted that the absence of an effective framework for reproductive health is anti-poor, anti-women, anti-children, and anti-development.

The EU said that continued rapid population growth in the Philippines is draining health and economic resources and slowing down economic growth.

It also threatens the sustainability of rural livelihoods and is inexorably destroying the remaining natural forest and marine habitats, with the poor are paying the highest price, both individually and collectively. –Pia Lee Brago, Philippine Star