The shadow of the A-word
by Rina Jimenez David, first published in the PDI
A FAVORITE tactic employed by those opposed to reproductive health and rights is to equate reproductive health with abortion, “tainting” the entire range of reproductive health services, including family planning, with the stigma attached to abortion.
To be sure, abortion is a loaded word, carrying with it concepts of sin and death, both for the fetus and the woman. But while in other countries societies and policy makers have successfully detached the right to plan one’s family and control one’s fertility on one hand from the termination of pregnancy on the other, in the Philippines “abortion” is the “dirty word” that hovers over the entire reproductive health debate. One need only mention abortion alongside reproductive health to bring an otherwise sane conversation to a screeching halt.
So when the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based international NGO, recently released “Forsaken Lives,” a study on the human rights implications of the Philippine criminal abortion ban, it may have struck the anti-RH lobby as a serendipitous gift. Finally, the so-called smoking gun, they may have thought. The “evidence” that behind all the agitation for policy and services respecting men’s and women’s reproductive health and rights is really an ultimate call for the legalization of abortion in the Philippines.
Expectedly, this has set off some panic among groups pushing hard for the passage of the “Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development” bills pending in Congress. A similar consolidated bill was reported out of committee in the last Congress, but a concerted filibuster and the machinations of Catholic bishops and the former presiden t managed to scuttle its passage.
Chances for the passage of such a bill were deemed very good for this 15th Congress, not only because of a change of administration but also because the public debates led to an unprecedented level of awareness of—and public support for—a reproductive health policy. Will the call for the liberalization of grounds for a legal abortion render a death blow to the RH bill?
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EXPRESSING “strong opposition” to the call for Congress to pass a law legalizing abortion, the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), which has led lobbying efforts for the passage of the RH bill, says there are other ways to bring down maternal deaths other than making abortion legal.
“The legal and culturally sensitive approach in reducing maternal deaths is for women and couples to practice family planning, (government to) provide skilled birth attendants (at) every delivery, and establish basic and emergency obstetric care which is accessible in urban and rural settings,” the group says. It further emphasized that voluntary familyplanning can reduce maternal deaths by 20 to 35 percent (WHO, 1995) and can be “institutionalized” by enactment into law of the proposed RH bills.
The PLCPD and the bills’ authors also stressed that the measure “does not consider abortion as a family planning method,” pointing out the bill itself emphasizes that “nothing in this Act changes the law on abortion.” However, even as abortion is not legal in the country, they stress that “the government should ensure that all women needing post-abortion care must be treated in a humane and non-judgmental manner.”
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LIKHAAN, an NGO providing reproductive health services for urban and rural poor communities while advocating reproductive rights for all, including the issue of unsafe abortion in the Philippines, sought to distance itself from “Forsaken Lives,” saying it did not take part in the study nor was it a collaborator. It added that it “hopes that Filipinos—on our own, free from foreign dictates—will find our own path of respectful debate, understanding and consensus-building around the emotion-and-culture-laden issue of induced abortion.”
Like PLCPD, the group also saw other ways by which we could lower maternal deaths other than legalization of abortion, including “widespread and effective contraception.” “Moreover,” Likhaan added, “a national consensus on reproductive health has already been achieved after over a decade of researches, debates and mass actions by Filipinos from different sectors of society. Surveys time and again show a consensus on a reproductive health bill that does not legalize abortion, but reduces its incidence through state support for modern family planning and sexuality education, and guarantees humane post-abortion care.”
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HAVING said all that—and may I emphasize that I agree with all their points—the fact remains that given the current situation, over half-a-million Filipino women will seek abortion services this year. An estimated 1,000 of them will die due to the consequences of an unsafe abortion while thousands more will suffer from deliberate delays, scolding, shaming and violations of their human rights as a consequence of the stigma attached to abortion.
The passage of an RH bill in the current form will not lead to an uptick in the already high number of unsafe abortions performed here each year, despite what its opponents insist. Should the provisions on the accessibility of family planning services and on sex education pass untouched, the bill could also reduce the number of abortions, since more women would be saved from having unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
But even with the passage of an RH bill, abortion will remain a serious public health problem unless and until we make up our minds to take a long, hard look at the realities of abortion, including, for starters, allowing for some grounds under which the procedure may be performed legally, with no threat of punishment.
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