Reproductive Health

MANILA, Philippines – The executive director of the Bishops Legislators Caucus of the Philippines (BLCP) has described as “completely wishful and fanciful” a claim attributed to Congressman Edcel Lagman saying that 130 congressmen now support the “patently unconstitutional” House Bill 5043, otherwise known as the Reproductive Health bill.

MANILA, Philippines – More Filipinos are supporting the controversial Reproductive Health Bill, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said.

MANILA, Philippines – Twenty-two more members of the House of Representatives have joined the original 108 who wanted to push for the approval of the controversial reproductive health bill in Congress that the influential Catholic church is vehemently opposing.

EVERY year, 536,000 women and girls die as a result of complications during pregnancy, childbirth or the six weeks following delivery.

A nationwide employers’ group has acknowledged that a lot of big companies are violating the labor code’s requirement for them to provide free family planning services to employees, and that the passage of the reproductive health bill would address this concern.

MANILA, Philippines — Close to P2 billion allocated for last year’s reproductive health programs in the country remained untapped, a health official said Wednesday.

New research warns of a population time bomb for developing nations as the ratio of elderly people rises faster than in the industrialised world.

Twenty-six faculty members, including former deans of the University of the Philippines College of Law, recently issued a statement of support for House Bill 5043, or the “Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2009.” The signatories are the third group of academicians and professionals who have expressed support for the passage of the…

MANILA, Philippines — As more and more people contract the Influenza A(H1N1) virus, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) called on employers to relax their sick leave rules to encourage staff members to stay at home if they develop flu symptoms.

Monday, June 8. Three days after Congress went on its mid-year recess. Over lunch, Ernesto Almocera Jr., program manager for the Center for Advocacy and Policy Development of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation Inc., and Roda Avila, Secretary General of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines, make no secret of…

Another dubious purpose of the RH bill is to check the alleged alarming increase in our population. The bill uses “population management’ instead of the coercive sounding “population control” to make it more agreeable and acceptable. But whatever it is called, it is based on false and misleading premises.

The most common ground cited for the passage of the RH bill is the alleged need for family planning of couples especially the poor. For this purpose, the proponents say it is necessary for them particularly the women to be properly informed of their sexual and reproductive health rights and to have access to reproductive…

MANILA, Philippines – Foreign businessmen are urging the Senate and the House of Representatives to approve the reproductive health and family planning bill, a move that will help address the poverty and unemployment issues of the country.

SOUTH BEND — President Barack Obama sought “common ground” in the culture war over abortion, in a politically thorny address Sunday at one of the top Catholic universities in the United States.

Our legislators should be convinced by now to push aside and junk the pending RH Bill. Otherwise they will appear to have been deceived or pressured on a grand scale by foreign countries and international organizations; or blinded by the piercing glitter of gold.

The phrase “last big push” graphically denotes a woman’s pushing a baby out of her womb. It is, too, the apt title of a forum held in Cebu City pushing for the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill that is pending in the Senate and the House. The initiative was organized by the Democratic Socialist…

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representatives in the Philippines is urging the Department of Health (DoH) to intensify its efforts in improving reproductive and maternal health services in order to reduce the number of mothers dying during pregnancy and childbirth as well as improve the survival rate of newborns in the country.

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

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has placed 42nd in the rank of places not good for mothers to live in, according to a study by a US-based organization.

The passage of the Reproductive Health bill would boost the Philippines’ fight against poverty, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the Delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines said.

Reactions to my articles on anti-life, anti-family measures like “reproductive health”, “reproductive rights”, family planning, population control and the use of artificial contraceptives vary from total agreement to conditional support, to critical rejection or indignant disapproval. This is alright. Freedom of expression or free exchange of views, ideas and beliefs is the essence of democracy.…

The government office that acts as advisory board to the President on matters regarding the advancement of women yesterday expressed its support for the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill, believing that “God would understand” a couple’s family planning choice.

Ask 46-year-old Filipino woman how many children she has. “Ten,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “But I was supposed to have only six,” she added, snapping in a breath.

Morality rate of children under five declining   MORE than half of Filipino married women used some form of contraceptives last year, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported Monday. According to the preliminary results of the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), the agency said 51 percent of the married women in the Philippines…

THE number of married Filipinas using contraceptives is increasing while the incidence of infant mortality in the Philippines is declining, the National Statistics reported yesterday.

THE Philippines’ population growth rate will continue to outpace its Southeast Asian neighbors, according to the World Bank.In its World Development Indicator 2009 Report, the Washington-based lender said the Philippines’ population would grow at an annual average of 1.7 percent until 2015, hitting 101 million by that year.This is faster than Indonesia’s 1 percent, Malaysia’s…

The backers of the RH bill have again strutted out statistics from a policy research organization based in New York, U.S.A. The report allegedly covers a study on women’s contraceptive needs in the Philippines showing that 4,600 mothers and 52,000 babies died in the country last year from unwanted pregnancies and birth related causes. Of…

A new report from the Guttmacher Institute and the University of the Philippines Population Institute reveals that low levels of contraceptive use in the Philippines result in high rates of unintended pregnancy and a broad range of negative consequences for women, their families and the national health care system.

MANILA, Philippines – Some 2,600 mothers and 52,000 babies died in the country last year due to lack of sexual and reproductive health knowledge, a leading New York-based policy research group revealed in a study.

This is a reaction to The Times “Special Report: The Church and Human Life” article “Mala-cañang’s pro-Life stand mainly a matter of morals” published April 12, 2009, reported by Angelo S. Samonte.