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No Filipino women die from condom use; 1 in 10,000 risk death in pregnancy
By Thin Lei Win
BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – Two female presidents have governed the Philippines, an achievement its neighbours have yet to match. The country also has high-profile female politicians, activists and entertainers who have made names around the world.
Yet these powerful women who run countries and companies successfully have not been allowed to access family planning policies according at will. They cannot go through procedures like tubal ligation without their husbands’ consent or take contraceptive pills without being reminded it is, as the Catholic Church termed it, “intrinsically evil.”
Or, like an outspoken commentator said, “The absurdity is that Filipinas are free to vote, be doctors, lawyers and soldiers, run a business, a political party or the whole country, but cannot even take the Pill. Or we can, but we’re told we’ll go to hell for it.”
This could all change, if Noynoy, as the current president Benigno Aquino III, son of democracy heroine Corazon Aquino, is better known, gets his way in getting the Reproductive Health (RH) bill approved in Philippines’ parliament.
But first he has to get past the country’s most powerful institution, the Catholic Church, which has threatened civil disobedience and likened him to ousted dictator Marcos for warning against such actions.
The bill is currently in second reading and the heated debate over it will continue when Congress resumes in late July.
“SEX BILL”
Around 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic. A poll last year showed seven out of 10 would support an RH bill that does not decriminalize abortion. The Church however opposes access to and information about contraception methods,
One Archbishop called the proposed RH bill a “Sex Bill” where the end products “are promiscuity, insensibility, amorality.”
Another Archbishop told a local paper, “We are willing to pay the price (being jailed for civil disobedience) to save the unborn from modern Herods and save the executioners from the grasp of the evil one.”
The church also has a high-profile ally in Manny Pacquiao, currently the world’s best pound-for-pound boxer, who said, "Let's listen to God and not an ordinary man." Local newspapers however pointed out despite Pacquiao’s stance, his wife use birth control pills.
The coverage of the bill, according to its principal author Representative Edcel Lagman, sounds non-offensive, from information and access to natural and modern family planning, prevention of abortion and counselling on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health.
For the faithful, however, many of the provisions, especially the ease with which women can access contraception (possibly for free), are tantamount to murder.
“The argument of the Catholic Church and its adherents in Congress is that many forms of hormonal contraceptives (pills, IUDs, injectables) and even barrier methods (condoms) are abortifacient simply because they supposedly prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, a claim that has no scientific basis according to the World Health Organisation,” Lagman’s office told TrustLaw.
Opponents have also said barrier methods prevent the meeting of sperm and egg, which already constitutes abortion.
HIGH MATERNAL DEATH TOLL
Some commentators have said Noynoy is putting his presidency on the line – both his mother and his predecessor strengthened their presidencies with strong support from the Church – by fighting for a bill that has been derailed at least three times before, the first time in the nineties.
Noynoy himself said he doesn’t see what the big fuss is all about, considering the bill neither dictates how many children couples should have nor forces birth control on anybody.
For experts however, the concern is over women, especially the poor—living far from the debating chambers and church halls—who daily bear the brunt of a lack of such bill.
According to the Lagman’s office, the average Total Fertility Rate in the country is 3.3 children per woman. In the richest quintile, it is 2.1 while in the poorest quintile, the average number of children is still 6 per woman, the same as in 1973.
The Philippines has one of the Asia's fastest-growing populations, nearing 100 million people. It also has one of the region's highest rates of maternal deaths; an average of 11 women die a day giving birth.
It is particularly severe in Muslim communities on Mindanao Island, where 320 mothers died per 100,000 live births – double the national average, the United Nations said.
Experts blame lack of education, information and access to family planning.
As passion and emotions once again take over in the debate over the RH bill, Lagman wrote, “The probability of dying from condom use is absolutely zero. But the risk of dying from a pregnancy is 1 in 10,000.”
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