Ping Bauzon
Manila Times

The Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development Bill is now awaiting second reading.

And the Catholic Church remains steadfast on opposing House Bill 5043 introduced by Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay.

The public, meanwhile, watches blindly from the sidelines, with no way in nor out in what critics call one of the morally, ethically and scientifically questionable bills in a predominantly Catholic nation like the Philippines.

But while the debate rages on, reproductive health is basically an unknown concept to most Filipino women.

In 1999, the National Statistics Office found that insufficient medical care is the cause of the 3.5 percent of maternal and infant deaths. Nearly 10 years later, the same dire statistics haunt the country—the decrease in infant mortality barely made a dent with the 2.4-percent figure this year.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) points out that worldwide, 170 women per 100,000 live births die every year. In the Philippines, according to the Commission on Population, 10 women die everyday because of complications related to pregnancy or childbirth.

Though not surprising, the figures have raised concerns.

“In general, there is a lack of access to health care and less so in reproductive health care, because many of the services have not yet been installed for women,” Milagros Rivera, executive director of the Institute for Reproductive Health Philippines (IRHphi), told The Manila Times. “Education leading to health-seeking behavior is sorely lacking.”

Global problem

Worldwide, reproductive and sexual illness are the leading causes of ill health and death for women in their child-bearing age, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Some of the causes of reproductive health-related problems—which can lead to maternal deaths—are AIDS, sexually transmittable infections, excessive bleeding after giving birth, bacterial and congenital infections, hypertension during pregnancy, premature birth, stillbirth, pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer and complications arising from abortions.

To reduce maternal and infant mortality rates, the UN Population Fund suggests that all women should have access to contraception methods to avoid unwanted pregnancies and decrease pregnancy-related deaths and illnesses.

Families that seriously believe in Catholic doctrine, can practice family-planning and birth control without pills and devices. They can use the Church-approved Billings method or Rhythm method—or be more disciplined and practice continence.

All pregnant women should have access to skilled care at the time of birth, the UN Population Fund also said, and all those with complications should have timely access to quality emergency obstetric care.

The economic status of each childbearing mother also plays a major role in surviving complications that may arise from pregnancy. There are more maternal and fetal deaths among the poor.

A rich woman has more chances of surviving the difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth, because she can afford to have access to proper medical attention before, during and after pregnancy.

Most poor women receive scant, if any, health care during pregnancy. Even public health centers are not easily accessible to them. Or if these are, public health centers are ill-equipped both in staff members and facilities to attend to women’s needs.

Debate in Philippines

A study done by Unicef Philippines in 2004 shows that 30 percent of pregnant women barely had four pre-natal checkups.

In 2001, the United Nations called for the reduction of maternal deaths during pregnancy by 75 percent and to provide all women with universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

Halfway to 2015, maternal mortality rates have gone down by half in China, Sri Lanka, Cuba, Egypt, Jamaica, Malaysia and Thailand—all in a span of 10 years.

For the Philippines, the debate is more than the ethical and moral issues that surround reproductive health. It is ultimately a physical health issue that affects the life and safety of mother and child.