Stagnant Women's Rights

Though activism for gender equality around the world has guided numerous countries towards making fairer and more humane laws for women, the Philippines continues to fall behind on advancing women’s rights. Even now, abortion remains illegal in all cases. The ban forces women to continue their pregnancies even when the pregnancy is a result of incest, rape, or causes severe detriment to the women’s health, earning the Philippines the title for the most restrictive abortion laws (2). These restrictive abortion laws have put the lives of women, and especially women living in poverty at unnecessary and unjust risk. 

Since the Spanish first colonized the Philippine islands in 1565, the Roman Catholic Church has had a powerful and decisive hold on the nation’s politics and religious morals. When the Spanish first colonized the Philippines, they brought along the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, and even now, centuries after colonization, 86% of the nation’s citizens still belong to the Roman Catholic Church (3). Although the Philippine constitution says there must be a separation between church and state, government decisions and social norms continue to mirror the Catholic Church’s morals and values. The religious impact on government policies has pushed the country’s politics towards a more conservative and restrictive route which translates into their confining abortion laws. 

There are many reasons to terminate a pregnancy, but one of the most common in the Philippines is the inability to cope with the financial strain that comes with a child. Not only are impoverished women that lack access to proper reproductive education and contraception far more likely to experience an unintended and unwanted pregnancy, but poor women are more likely to seek abortions as a result of the financial strain as well (5). Some women already have or have more than their desired number of children, and others simply cannot or do not want to have a child (5). 

Without government support, these women seeking to end their pregnancies are forced to take to the streets or look for herbal remedies such as Pampa Regla (6). Uncertified and counterfeit street abortifacients not only lack the guarantee of a successful and safe abortion, but they are also incredibly costly. The cost of illegal abortions can be more than $500, making an already difficult decision even more inaccessible (4). Those living in poverty are forced to either have a child or have a clandestine abortion, both of which cause unnecessary and debilitating financial strain. These primitive abortion laws affect those living in poverty disproportionately and force women living in poverty into a never-ending cycle of debt. The issue with a lack of safe and affordable abortions for all is further compounded by the lack of post-abortion care in the Philippines. Medical help is oftentimes withheld as a direct result of the social stigma that abortion goes hand-in-hand with, and women are forced to either die from preventable causes or undergo post-abortion care without anesthesia as an inhumane punishment (1). 

In the twentieth century, countries are trying to take the steps to be more accepting and humane by granting their citizens the basic human rights they have long been denied, however, the Philippines seems to be late to the game. The Philippine government has failed to evolve and continues to use outdated teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to justify the continual lack of improvement in laws concerning women. The government implements laws that only instill and enforce the systemic oppression of women, and especially women living in poverty, forcing them to remain second-class citizens. 
 

Sources
Photo credit: (Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

1. Conde, Carlos H. “Philippines Abortion Crisis.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 May 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/world/asia/philippines-abortion-crisis.html.

2. Hindstrom, Hanna. “International Development Journalism Competition: Abortion in the Philippines.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 29 June 2011, www.theguardian.com/journalismcompetition/abortion-in-the-philippines.

3. “Religion in the Philippines.” Asia Society, 2020, https://asiasociety.org/education/religion-philippines.

4. Sedgwick, Josephine. “'I Couldn't Tell Anyone': Women Around the World Reveal Intimate Stories of Abortion.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 July 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/reader-center/abortion-around-the-world.html.

5. “Unintended Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion in the Philippines: Context and Consequences.” Guttmacher Institute, 28 Feb. 2020, www.guttmacher.org/report/unintended-pregnancy-and-unsafe-abortion-philippines-context-and-consequences.

6. Wilson, Alex, et al. “Bitter Roots and Reproductive Rights: Access to Abortion Services in Canada and the Philippines.” Oxfam Canada, Oxfam, 2 Oct. 2019, www.oxfam.ca/blog/bitter-roots-and-reproductive-rights-access-to-abortion-services-in-canada-and-the-philippines/. ​

*this is an opinionated piece*