In May 2020, when reports on the surge of the teen pregnancies came out in media, gender rights lawyer and EndGenderRights executive director Clara Rita Padilla drafted a bill on access to safe abortion to save women’s lives.
“The decriminalization of abortion is extremely urgent as we are constantly faced with the public health issue of women dying and suffering disability from complications from unsafe abortion and spontaneous abortions,” she said. The women’s rights advocate also stated that the bill will also help protect medical workers in performing abortion and post-abortion care.
“With abortion decriminalized, women will have access to safe abortion, thus, averting maternal deaths and disability from unsafe abortion complications,” Padilla stated in her online post.
A research done by the Guttmacher Institute in 2013 in partnership with the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health entitled “Unintended Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion in the Philippines” showed that around 1,000 Filipino women die each year from abortion complications. This contributes to the nation’s high maternal mortality rate. Based on the projections of the study using data from 2000, about 100,000 women were hospitalized for abortion complications in 2012.
Being a Catholic nation, the decriminalization of abortion is considered a moral issue rather than a public health issue. Abortion is opposed by the conservative members of the Congress including President Rodrigo Duterte who said he hates abortion.
In January this year, Fr. Bel R. San Luis, SVD preached that life only belongs to God amidst discussions on abortion, euthanasia, death penalty and the like.
“No matter how advanced science and technology may be, LIFE belongs to God. Hence, only God can take it away,” he said. “The teaching of the Church is based on God’s commandment: “You shall not kill.” It warns us and stresses that any form of taking life is a grievous offense against God, the giver of life,” he added.
The Philippine law mandates a minimum of six months to six-year-imprisonment for women who intentionally engage in abortion as stated in the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Section 2 Article 258.
The high rate of teen pregnancies in the country now may consequently increase the number of underground abortions performed as well.
In another related study entitled “Unintended Pregnancy and Induced Abortion in the Philippines” Filipino women undergo abortion due to:
• lack of funds required to raise an additional child
• women claiming that they have enough children or the pregnancy came too soon
• women saying they are too young and there are health risks with pregnancy and child birth
• women who are rape victims and do not want to keep their child
Currently, only therapeutic abortion is recognized legal in the Philippine law. This is performed when pregnancies become a matter of life and death such as when the embryo dies while still inside the mother’s uterus.
