RH law will reduce abortion, women’s health advocates say

Unsafe abortions in the Philippines will be reduced if the Congress passes a reproductive health bill that will promote modern family planning, several women’s rights advocates said at a forum Wednesday.

“What’s important to us is the prevention [of abortion] and the humane treatment of women seeking post-abortion care,” said Dr. Junice Melgar, executive director of the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health.

COUNTRIES WITHOUT ABORTION LAWS

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 60 percent of women worldwide now live under relatively liberal abortion laws. Only around six percent of women, among them Filipinas, live in countries where abortion is banned without exception. These countries are:

Andorra
Angola
Central African Rep.
Chile
Congo (Brazzaville)
Dem. Rep. of Congo
Dominican Republic
Egypt
El Salvador
Gabon
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Honduras
Iraq
Laos
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malta
Mauritania
Mauritius
Monaco
Oman
Philippines
San Marino
Sao Tome & Principe
Senegal
Somalia
Suriname
Tonga
Source: Center for Reproductive Rights

Likhaan hosted a round-table discussion on the topic and screened a documentary entitled “Agaw-Buhay” (Fighting for Life), which dramatized the true stories of four Filipino women who had suffered complications from unsafe abortions.

“We are pushing for the passage of the reproductive health (RH) bill, but not for the legalization of abortion,” added Melgar. “The RH bill, if passed, will promote family planning programs and therefore reduce abortions.”

The forum was attended by RH advocates, medical practitioners, lawyers, educators, and government officials.

The Reproductive Health Advocacy Network, represented by Beth Angsioco, echoed Likhaan’s position: “The RH bill provides for necessary services and measures that address abortion, like family planning, training of skilled birth attendants, maternal mortality review, post-abortion care, improved maternal health services, upgrading of healthcare provision, and hospitalization. All these will reduce abortion rates.”

The Likhaan forum was held two days after the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) released a report describing a growing “human rights crisis” of unsafe abortions that affects more than half a million Filipino women every year.

The group and several local NGOs, including EnGender Rights and the Institute for Social Studies and Action, called on the Philippine Congress to make “safe and legal abortion” available to Filipino women under certain circumstances such as pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when the condition endangers a woman’s life.

Public debate on abortion

But other reproductive health advocates have expressed concern that pushing for the legalization of abortion, even on a limited scale, may further strengthen the opposition of conservative Roman Catholics against the passage of the RH bill.

“Tingin ko talaga, dapat pag-usapan ang abortion kasi nangyayari talaga. Kailangan nito ng public debate and dialogue. Pero siyempre bilang isang legislator ang concern ko rin ang makamit ang RH bill. One battle at a time,” said former Akbayan Party-list Representative Risa Hontiveros, a co-author of the reproductive health bill in the 14th congress.

(I really believe that abortion should be discussed, because it’s a reality. It needs public debate and dialogue. But of course, as a legislator, I’m concerned with passing the RH bill.)

“Kasi, baka gamitin nila ‘yun para masabi na ‘O, tignan niyo. Sinabi namin na ang RH bill ay maskara para sa abortion,” she added.

(Our opponents may use this to reason, ‘See! We knew that this bill was a mask for abortion.’)

Catholic conservatives have argued that reproductive health legislation would open doors for the legalization of abortion, despite Section 3 of the bill that says, “While nothing in this Act changes the law on abortion, as abortion remains a crime and is punishable, the government shall ensure that women seeking care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, non-judgmental and compassionate manner.”

Separate abortion law

Atty. Melissa Upreti, one of the authors of the CRR report, said the proponents of legislation for the decriminalization of abortion should be differentiated from those who are fighting for the passage of the RH bill.

“These two issues are being deliberately pitted against each other by the opposition in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: to defeat the RH bill and to maintain the status quo on abortion. These issues need to be dealt with separately and on the basis of legal norms, public health data and medical science,” she said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that conducts research on reproductive health, more than half of the 3.4 million annual pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended.

Lina Bacalando, a health worker from an urban poor community in Malabon, says she treats women for complications from unsafe abortion on a daily basis. “Sa isang araw, sa mga sampung babae na pupunta [sa clinic namin] for pre-natal, siguro kalahati doon ay unwanted pregnancy,” she says.

(Every day, out of around ten women that come to my clinic for pre-natal care, perhaps half are unwanted pregnancies.)

Many women resort to drinking herbal concoctions or taking abortifacient drugs to induce abortion, she said. Many of these women are married and already have several children, the health worker added.

But Lina believes it will take much more than legalizing abortion to solve the problem of unsafe abortion.

“Hindi ganun kadali na lumantad lalo na kung ikaw ay sagradong Katoliko. Kahit legal ‘yan, marami pa rin sa mga doktor na hindi gagawin,” she said, adding that poor women also may not be able to afford the cost of safe abortion.

(It’s not that easy to admit you tried to induce abortion, especially if you are a Catholic. Even if they make abortion legal, many doctors still won’t do it.)

“Maraming kailangang gawin sa kabuuan para mabawasan ang pagkamatay sa pagbubuntis. Nandoon yung family planning, at napaka-importante ang education at information na tama,” Lina asserted.

(There are many things we need to do to lower maternal death rates. There’s family planning, and also providing women with right information and education). – YA, GMANews.TV