Reproductive health lack curbs development

The apparent lack of access to reproductive health services in the Philippines hampers development, according to an envoy.

Alistair MacDonald, Ambassador of the Delegation of the European Union in the Philippines, on Thursday said that continued inaction on the Reproductive Health Bill that will give universal access to reproductive health services is not the way to promote development, encourage higher-skilled employment and allow families to give their children the opportunities that they deserve.

“This (inaction) helps to promote exploitation, trafficking and misery,” MacDonald noted during the official launch of the Emphasis-Reproductive Health project.

He cited that the total fertility rate (TFR) for the richest quintile of the population is 2.0, compared with the poorest quintile’s  5.9, and that the TFR for women with college education is 2.3, about half that of women with only elementary education (4.5).

Recent surveys also suggested that the total wanted fertility rate for the Philippines is 2.4 children, well below the actual TFR of 3.3 children.

As such, MacDonald said that it is not surprising that the maternal mortality ratio in the Philippines has fallen only very slowly and reached 162 in 2008, still three times the Millennium Development Goals’  target of 52 by 2015.

“It seems to me extremely unlikely that the Philippines will be able to meet its commitment under the MDGs under the present policy,” he added.

The absence of reproductive health services, according to MacDonald, also puts the children at risk of dying or having diseases as a result of unplanned pregnancies.

“It is frightening to think of the opportunities which children here are being denied because of the strain on health services, on education services and the lack of employment opportunities, in a country which is straining at the seams. And even more immediately, infants and children have a greater probability of dying if they are born to mothers who are too young or too old, if they are born after a short birth interval, or if they are of high birth order,” he said.

MacDonald also noted that lack of access to reproductive health services does not help stop abortions but encourages them.

There are more than 500,000 illegal abortions a year in the Philippines. –Llanesca T. Panti, Manila Times