Manila Women Fight for Birth Control

Female activists from poor communities in Manila are demanding access to contraceptive services:

Women from three slum communities in Manila asked the appeals court on Wednesday to allow them access to contraceptives in public clinics, revoking a local law that bans condoms and pills.

In 2000, the capital’s mayor issued an order stopping doctors, nurses and other health workers from promoting and distributing contraceptives, instructing them to teach only the natural method of family planning.

“We want to decide for ourselves how many children we would have, and not the government to tell us how to do it,” Lourdes Osil, a mother of six, told reporters after her lawyers asked the court to declare the seven-year-old local law unconstitutional.

“We were denied not only access to contraceptives, but even our rights guaranteed in the constitution to make a free choice were also ignored and violated.”

Home to an estimated 89 million people, the largely Catholic Philippines has one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia with around 2 million babies born every year.

Under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a devout Catholic who relies on the support of politically powerful bishops, the central government promotes natural family planning methods such as abstinence when the woman is ovulating.

Emma Monzaga, one of the petitioners, said she was getting injections once every three months to prevent her from becoming pregnant, but was told on her third visit to a public clinic that the treatment was no longer available.

“I was asked to go somewhere else to get the shots because the city hall has stopped funding the family planning program,” Monzaga said, adding her family could not afford to spend extra for contraceptives.

“We used to get it for free. It’s becoming a burden because we have to eat and send our six children to school.”

I’m sure that Monzaga is far from being the only one who cannot afford to spend money on birth control in an area where many struggle to put food on the table. And as important as the right to personal autonomy and reproductive choice is, this situation goes far beyond those kinds of concerns. We’re literally talking about life and death:

Gerry Cruz, a medical doctor and a member of the Philippine Family Planning Organization, said the women had been placed at risk due to the city’s decision to deny them access to contraceptives.

“We’re supporting these women’s petition not just from the legal point of view, but more on the health aspects because we saw a study showing an alarming increase in maternal deaths in Manila due to multiple pregnancies,” Cruz said.

Cruz said he feared the country’s population could reach 150 million in the next 20 years if government failed to promote an effective population management program.

“We’re not in favor of a population reduction policy, only sound management to keep the birth rate from growing faster than our economy,” he said.

. . .

While the rich are able to avail of artificial birth control in private clinics, the poor have been reliant on the U.S. government agency USAID, which has been the biggest supplier of contraceptives in the Philippines for the past 30 years.

But USAID has started phasing out supplies and plans to end the rest of its donation program in 2008. The agency has said its phase-out is in line with Manila’s goal of self-reliance in family planning.

To deal with the financial and emotional strain of unwanted pregnancies, around half a million women are estimated to have abortions each year despite the procedure being illegal and strictly taboo in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Many die because of abortions performed in backroom clinics or by untrained nurses and quacks.

These women are risking a lot, I’m sure not only for their own sake but for the sake of their daughters, sisters, neighbors, etc. Women are dying because of laws against condoms, but it apparently took eight years to seek change at this level because there was such strong fear of government persecution.

This is precisely why we need religion out of both government and necessary public services. And it goes far beyond my personal distaste for Catholicism. In the U.S., women are constantly denied emergency contraception, even after rape, other forms of birth control and necessary abortion care for health reasons because the hospital in their neighborhood is Catholic. There is absolutely no way that we should let this happen. Catholic hospitals should either be required to perform all of the duties expected of secular hospitals, or simply shouldn’t be allowed to exist unless there is another major hospital directly across the road and they have signs plastered everywhere stating that they provide only limited services due to religious belief.

Religion should not determine health care policies. And what’s happening in Manila is precisely why. Not because I think that these policies are going to make it here, but because those policies are already in place and killing women there. Women are dying because their bodies can’t handle more children. Women are risking their lives and sometimes dying because the thought of carrying a pregnancy to term is unbearable. Five hundred thousand illegal abortions are taking place each year in a heavily Catholic society, where having an abortion might not only contradict the pregnant women’s personal beliefs but also could cause them to be ostracized by the community. I can only imagine how many women have sought out illegal abortions and simply been unable to find them. And though the article doesn’t mention it, I dread to think about what is happening with STDs in a place with no condoms and very limited access to health services. Of course, some women have been able to obtain contraception illegally, though not all can afford it or would even know how to find birth control this way.

It shouldn’t surprise us that the U.S. is funding current contraceptive services to the Philippines without bothering to make a peep about what is happening in Manila, not to mention still being completely willing to stop that aid under the circumstances. Because hey, if a government trampling on women’s rights tells you that they don’t what any more money to help women, who are we to argue or try to extend the program? Wouldn’t want to waste my and your precious tax dollars, right? And god knows that the U.S. hates to get involved in other countries’ politics . . . when there’s no chance that we’ll get to drop any bombs. No (direct) civilian casualties? *yawn*

I don’t have hugely optimistic expectations that the court will overturn the law in question, though I certainly hope that it does. In the event that the law stands, I can only hope that the actions of these activists will attract more attention both internationally and locally and that it will help them to keep the pressure on. A survey last year showed that nine in ten Filipinos want public-funded contraception. Organizations working on these issues locally include EnGender Rights and PNGOC together with RHAN. Check them out for more information.