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A Pro-Choice Approach on Abortion in the Philippines

• The whole population should rightly be informed and educated regarding the procedures, benefits (if it includes any), and any potential risk,
• All grounds must be legal; standards must be set between legal and illegal forms and methods of abortion,
• There must be uniform procedures throughout the country,
• The women has the right to choose what happens in her own body, meaning that nothing is forced against her will, let anyone who forces a woman to have an abortion be charged and punished by the state,
• Educate the population about contraceptives or birth control methods; let it be known the significance of family unit as building blocks of the society,
• Laws that will protect women regarding the right to terminate pregnancies must be promulgated,
• Any medical specialist must be registered and must have a license in order to perform such procedure.

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Advocating for women’s reproductive rights and decriminalizing the abortion law in the Philippines

Yash Arya | 13 May 2021

Angela was just 14 the first time she got pregnant. It was her first sexual experience. She says “I wanted to cry; I was pushing him away. But he said he would take responsibility and that he loved me,” her boyfriend’s parents told her contraception had bad side effects and it damaged the uterus, “So I got scared … That’s why I kept getting pregnant.” The first time she got pregnant, she miscarried at seven months. By the time she was 16, she had given birth to another baby. Just a few weeks after the birth, she was pregnant again. Now living with her boyfriend, in a ramshackle hut surrounded by mud, Angela the young mother of four often struggles to scrounge together enough food to feed her family. “Sometimes I cry because my children are suffering as sometimes they have nothing to eat.” But she believes having access to contraception and sex education could have changed the course of her life. (original article published in Aljazeera by Mary Ann Jolley dated 24 Jan 2018 )

Adolescent mothers, who should have been the relics of the past when early childbearing was the norm, are still prevalent in the modern scenario both in developed and developing nations. However, while teen pregnancy rates in most countries are declining, the numbers are rising in the Philippines. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2020 reportedly stated that the “Philippines has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates among the ASEAN member-states.” It documented that “more than 500 Filipino adolescent girls are getting pregnant and giving birth every day,” or above 182,500 births annually . According to the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM), a Philippine government agency, the number of pregnant children below 15 in the archipelago has doubled in the past 10 years.

The Philippines is currently one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies and health is a basic human right guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution of 1987. The Philippines spends more than 4.40% of its GDP in healthcare infrastructure which is more than many of the developing economies in Asia like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, etc. and also provides for universal health care (UHC) system known as Phil Health which covers the entire population. Yet, despite advances in reproductive health law, many Filipino women experience unintended pregnancies,because abortion is highly stigmatized in the country, many who seeks an abortion, undergo unsafe procedures.

Now you may wonder, why is it so? Why are there so many adolescent mothers here? And the answer is, the Philippines laws allow adults to legally engage in sexual intercourse with children as young as 12. Although girls can legally have sex from the age of 12, they need their parents’ permission to get contraception or an HIV test if they are under 18. The country has one of the world’s lowest ages of consent in the world and health workers say this leads to many girls having unprotected sex, which leaves them vulnerable to pregnancy. However, in a recent development,  the congress of the Philippines now looks set to approve a bill to raise the age of sexual consent from age 12 to 16.

Another question that might follow is when the country itself legalizes it, who are we to pour in our suggestions and challenge the laws. The answer is simple, but before that, I would like you to revisit the data mentioned above and understand it in two aspects. Firstly concerning the future of young girls, due to early pregnancy young girls fail to finish basic education, lack adequate skills for remunerative work, and are economically vulnerable, thus perpetuating inter-generational poverty. Moreover, adolescent pregnancies also negatively affect the economy billions forfeited revenues due to “lost opportunities and forgone savings” consequent to early childbearing as most adolescent mothers remain unemployed and unproductive. As a result, the country fails to reap the benefits of a demographic dividend from the potential of a huge young population.

Secondly, the consequences on the health of young mothers are further aggravated in the absence of safe/legal laws on abortion. According to WHO (World Health Organisation), early pregnancy among adolescents results in major health consequences for young mothers and their babies. Pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading causes of death among adolescent girls globally with teenage pregnancies leading to some 3.9 million  unsafe abortions  among girls aged between 15 to 19 years old per year, contributing to maternal mortality, morbidity, and lasting health problems. For the Philippines, the Statistics are hard to come by, but according to a 2013 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a US-based sexual and reproductive rights organization, 610,000 women in the Philippines had abortions in 2012, nearly all of them in secret and without the benefit of doctors or nurses, and about 1,000 women die each year from abortion complications.

Many groups in the Philippines, which support laws against abortion and its criminalization cite religious reasons for stating that the Philippines is a predominantly catholic country and it goes against their religious notions. However it is to be noted here that many other predominantly Catholic countries for example Belgium, France, and Italy allow abortion upon a woman’s request, Poland allows abortion to protect a woman’s life and physical health, and in cases of rape, incest, and fetal impairment, Hungary allows abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation, even Spain have liberal abortion laws and allows abortion up to 14 weeks of the pregnancy and thereafter on specific grounds. That is why various women’s rights activists and organizations in the Philippines have advocated for repealing or revising the 1930 Revised Penal Code abortion law (Art. 25618 -259 of the Revised Penal Code) as a restrictive, colonial, and antiquated law that continues to perpetuate discrimination against women.

This brings us to the abortion laws of the Philippines which are among the strictest in the world.  Abortion is illegal under all circumstances. There are also no explicit exceptions to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fetal impairment. The Penal Code considers abortion to be a criminal offense punishable by up to six years in prison for doctors and midwives who perform abortions and by 2‒6 years in prison for women who undergo the procedure, regardless of the reason. A separate set of laws under the Midwifery Act, Medical Act, and Pharmaceutical Act permit the revocation or suspension of the licenses of any practitioner who performs abortions or provides abortifacients. Although therapeutic abortion is recognized as allowed in the Philippines, the problem is lack of information and the pervasive judgment imposed on women who induce abortion, hence, decriminalizing abortion is an important step towards eliminating discrimination against women and ensuring women’s access to reproductive health services, as abortion is highly stigmatized.

Further, the process of obtaining an abortion in the Philippines is often not straightforward and may involve many methods and attempts, with serious health consequences. Dangerous methods involving the insertion of a catheter or other object into the uterus, which often causes infection and perforations, heavy abdominal pressure or “massage” to expel a fetus, by a traditional practitioner and even trying to self-induce abortions by taking misoprostol (a type of drug) are often resorted too. Thus with abortion decriminalized, women can easily access facilities for safe abortion and post-abortion care will not be impeded. This will in turn not only help to prevent maternal deaths and disability from unsafe abortion complications, But also uphold women’s reproductive rights that state, women has the right to bodily autonomy, her basic right to life, heath, and privacy and should not be forced to carry on a pregnancy. These rights have also been enshrined in the Human Rights Charter, CEDAW, International declarations like the Maputo Protocol in Africa, and at times by the Supreme Court of the Philippines itself.

The traditional belief that women should accept “all the children God gives,” the recent glorification of the fetus as having more value than the woman it is dependent on, and male-dominated culture are all used extremely effectively to justify criminal restrictions. Nevertheless, the need for abortion is one of the defining experiences of having a uterus. Thus to fully explore the potential of law and promote women’s health, the policymakers should undertake even more concrete steps to decriminalize not only the law on abortion by allowing for need-based abortions but also work towards removing the stigma associated with it. This upcoming legislation is indeed a welcoming step but the road ahead is long and tumultuous to secure women’s reproductive rights. Adequate access to contraceptives, better sex- education, and awareness about women’s reproductive rights are to be ensured meanwhile till the legislation sees the light of day.

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Abortion in Philippines

The Philippines abortion law is among the strictest in the world. Abortion is illegal under all circumstances and there are no explicit exceptions. Nonetheless, because of high levels of unintended pregnancy, abortion is common in the country.[1]

Is Abortion Legal in the Philippines?

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, under the Revised Penal Code of 1930.

What Types of Abortion are Available in the Philippines?

MVA, D&C is available only as post-abortion care.

Abortion with Pills (Medical Abortion) in the Philippines

Are the Abortion Pills (Mifepristone and Misoprostol) Available in the Philippines? Abortion pills are not sold legally in the Philippines. Misoprostol is registered in the Philippines for the treatment of a range of medical conditions. [2] How Late Into a Pregnancy Can the Abortion Pills Be Used? You may be able to get a medication abortion up to 13 weeks after the first day of your last period. If it has been 78 days or more since the first day of your last period, you can have an in-clinic abortion to end your pregnancy. Do I Need a Prescription for Mifepristone? Misoprostol? A prescription is needed for Misoprostol. What Brands of Abortion Pill Are Popular in the Philippines? Popular abortion pills brands in the Philippines are Cytotec and Mifepristone.

How Much Do the Abortion Pills Cost in the Philippines?

Cytotec 0 weeks – 2 months: Php 3400 3 months and above – Price varies on how many months

Mifepristone 0 weeks – 2 months: Php 5200 3 months and above – Price varies on how many months [4] What is the abortion rate in the Philippines? How Many Women Have Abortions? Projections that were based on the national abortion rate in 2000 (the most recent available) and that took into account population increase estimated that 560,000 abortions occurred in 2008 and 610,000 abortions took place in 2012.

Who Can I Contact for More Information on Abortion in the Philippines?

For more information about post-abortion care, please contact https://likhaan.org/

In-Clinic Abortion in the Philippines

What are the Different Types of in-Clinic Abortion Procedures Available in the Philippines? Through the Department of Health Administrative Order No 2016 – 0041, the following are the available post-abortion care services available: Dilation & Curettage, Manual Vacuum Aspiration, Uterotonics. Where Can I get a Manual Vacum Aspiration (MVA) Abortion in the Philippines? Manual Vacuum Aspiration can be provided as post-abortion care by any nurse, midwife, obstetrician-gynaecologist and general practitioners.

How Much Does Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA) Cost in the Philippines?

Manual Vacuum Aspiration costs Php 11, 000.00[3]

How to get further information?

For additional information and support, you can get in touch with our trained multilingual female counselors

LEARN ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY

by the safe2choose team and supporting experts at carafem , based on the 2019 recommendations by Ipas , and the 2012 recommendations by the WHO .

[1] https://attorney.org.ph/legal-news/35-the-criminal-law-on-abortion

[2] https://www.howtouseabortionpill.org/abortion-laws-by-country/philippines/

[3] https://www.philhealth.gov.ph/circulars/2013/annexes/circ35_2013/Annex2_ListOfProcedureCaseRates.pdf

[4] https://abortionpillsph.blog/

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Why Abortion Should Be Legalized

Why Abortion Should Be Legalized

• Categories: Abortion Pro Choice (Abortion) Women's Health

About this sample

Words: 1331 |

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1331 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, why abortion should be legal.

• Gipson, J. D., Hirz, A. E., & Avila, J. L. (2011). Perceptions and practices of illegal abortion among urban young adults in the Philippines: a qualitative study. Studies in family planning, 42(4), 261-272. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2011.00289.x)
• Finer, L. B., & Hussain, R. (2013). Unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion in the Philippines: context and consequences. (https://www.guttmacher.org/report/unintended-pregnancy-and-unsafe-abortion-philippines-context-and-consequences?ref=vidupdatez.com/image)
• Flavier, J. M., & Chen, C. H. (1980). Induced abortion in rural villages of Cavite, the Philippines: Knowledge, attitudes, and practice. Studies in family planning, 65-71. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1965798)
• Gallen, M. (1979). Abortion choices in the Philippines. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/abortion-choices-in-the-philippines/853B8B71F95FEBDD0D88AB65E8364509 Journal of Biosocial Science, 11(3), 281-288.
• Holgersson, K. (2012). Is There Anybody Out There?: Illegal Abortion, Social Work, Advocacy and Interventions in the Philippines. (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A574793&dswid=4931)

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The reality of abortion in the Philippines

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

J ust this August, Maria (not her real name), a 21-year old rape victim who became pregnant as a result of the rape with a child with dwarfism condition, died a day after giving birth due to childbirth complications.  Her mother lamented that her daughter might be alive today had her daughter been able access to safe and legal  abortion .

I have interviewed many poor women who divulged risking their health and lives by self-inducing  abortion  using catheters or dispensing drugs without proper dosage and supervision eventually suffering complications.  

Such cases are common in our country where over half of the pregnancies are unintended, and about 17% and one-third of the unintended pregnancies end in  abortion  nationwide and in the National Capital Region, respectively, and where two-thirds of those who induce  abortion  are poor.  

Views, religion, and abortion 

The 2004 national survey on  abortion  showed that nearly 90% of those who induce  abortion  are Catholic. Regardless of Church teachings, Filipino women still resort to  abortion  with the poor, rural and young women being the most vulnerable to self-induced unsafe  abortion .

Although the Reproductive Health (RH) Law provides humane, non-judgmental, compassionate post- abortion  care and, a law known as RA 8344 provides for stabilizing patients in serious cases such as when a woman is bleeding due to complications from self-induced unsafe  abortion , making  abortion  safe and legal is the best means for women who resort to  abortion  to be assured that their health and lives are not at risk. 

 Even with RA 8344, the problem, in the past years and until now, is that some medical health care providers erroneously deny life-saving procedures even in cases of intrauterine fetal death where therapeutic  abortion  is needed to save the life of the woman.  

In cases of ectopic pregnancy where the pregnancy occurs outside the uterine cavity, surgery is necessary to save a woman’s life . Within a few hours from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, the abdomen becomes rigid and the woman goes into shock. Ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening, emergency condition requiring immediate surgery.

Expressing negative views on  abortion  is dangerous because it maintains the status quo where many medical providers threaten women with prosecution in cases of intrauterine fetal death, spontaneous  abortion ,  abortion  due to trauma from intimate partner violence and self-induced  abortion .  

As a consequence of these threats of prosecution, women end up dying because they delay going to hospitals or do not seek emergency medical care at all.

Judgmental views about known abortifacients such as  Cytotec  must be eliminated because these are lifesaving medications  necessary for the evacuation of the uterus for incomplete  abortion , missed  abortion , intrauterine fetal death,  severe eclampsia, labor induction, post-partum hemorrhage, and cervical ripening prior to obstetrical/gynecological procedures such as therapeutic curettage and insertion of intrauterine devices.

Abortion and law

The current criminal law on  abortion  is an outdated colonial law that violates the rights to health and life of Filipino women.  

It was a direct translation of the old Spanish Penal Code of 1870s that used to criminalize  abortion —in the time of the Spanish friars and conquistadores.   Without knowing the full consequences of such a harsh and restrictive law, our Congress enacted the criminal provision in our Revised Penal Code of 1930.  

At the time the law was adopted, Filipino women did not even have the right to vote, there was no Universal Declaration of Human Rights and no international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1976), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1976), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1981), Convention Against Torture (CAT, 1987), and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1990).  These came much later.

Denying women access to safe and legal  abortion  is a means to control women’s bodies, propagating subordination of women where women’s decisions including personal decisions related to pregnancy and childbirth are totally disregarded. 

Permitting restrictions on women’s right to decide their own bodies perpetuate discrimination against women and inequality of women in law in clear violation of women’s right to equal protection of the law and women’s right to privacy.  

Allowing penal provisions imposed on women who induce  abortion  and those who assist them to prevail in Philippine law based on religious standards violates the constitutional guarantee of non-establishment of religion. 

Denying access to safe and legal  abortion  is a public health issue.  

The illegality of  abortion  with no clear exceptions drives women to self-induce  abortion  unnecessarily endangering their health and lives. If we want health care service providers to provide humane, non-judgmental, compassionate post- abortion  care and if we want to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity due to unsafe  abortion , then we should rethink the archaic colonial law that restricts access to safe and legal  abortion.

We should also welcome discussion on exceptions in cases of rape, incest, danger to the health and life of the woman,  grave fetal infirmity  incompatible with life outside the uterus, or allow  abortion  up to 14 weeks of pregnancy or, better yet, simply repeal the penal provisions imposing penalty on the women who induce  abortion  and the service providers assisting them.

In other countries

Access to safe and legal  abortion  is also a social justice issue with rich women being able to go to places like Hong Kong where  abortion  is safe and legal while poor women who do not have funds to go abroad end up self-inducing unsafe abortion .  

We need to address the prevailing inequality besetting poor women. Serving this social justice concern will contribute to greatly reducing maternal deaths and morbidity related to self-induced unsafe  abortion .  

Allowing outmoded colonial penal laws on  abortion  in Philippine law makes us all complicit to the estimated 3 women who die each day from self-induced unsafe  abortion .  Letting such law prevail in our society breeds hatred and hostility towards Filipino women who resorted to self-induced and unsafe  abortion . Our laws should never countenance this.   

Other predominantly Catholic countries and former Spanish colonies have liberalized their laws on  abortion.  

Spain legalized  abortion  on request during the first 14 weeks of the pregnancy in 2010 and other predominantly Catholic countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Costa Rica, and Ireland and former Spanish colonies such as Uruguay and Colombia allowed  abortion  on certain grounds. This leaves the Philippines to contend with its antiquated colonial Spanish law.  

Asian countries such as China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have liberal  abortion  laws while Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand have recently liberalized their laws to allow  abortion  on certain grounds.

Some people mistakenly believe that the Philippine Constitution prohibits  abortion  because of the provision on equal protection of the life of the woman and the unborn from conception.  

On the contrary, other countries with constitutions and laws explicitly protecting the life of the unborn or life from conception allow  abortion  under certain exceptions such as Ireland, Slovak Republic, Poland, Kenya, Hungary, and Costa Rica.

In the complaint of LC v Peru filed with the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), L.C. was 13 years old when a 34-year old man started sexually abusing her.  She became pregnant as a result of the rape and, in a state of depression, attempted suicide by jumping from a building, suffering spinal injuries with “a risk of permanent disability.”  

Despite her serious and deteriorating condition, her doctors refused to perform an operation because she was pregnant and denied her request for therapeutic  abortion . L.C. then miscarried spontaneously.  

The Committee recommended to Peru in 2009 to provide reparation to L.C., review its laws to establish effective access to therapeutic  abortion , include protocols to ensure health services are available and accessible in public facilities, and decriminalize  abortion  when the pregnancy results from rape.

The 2006 CEDAW Concluding Comments recommended for the Philippines to remove the punitive provisions imposed on women who induce  abortion  and to provide access to quality services for the management of complications arising from unsafe  abortions  to reduce maternal mortality rates.

In the 2014 CEDAW Committee report on the inquiry on reproductive rights violations in the Philippines, the Committee recommended for the Philippines to amend articles 256 to 259 of the Revised Penal Code to “legalize  abortion  in cases of rape, incest, threats to the life and/or health of the mother, or serious malformation of the fetus and decriminalize all other cases where women undergo  abortion .”

Upholding reproductive rights

In this day and age, we must uphold reproductive rights to the fullest extent where we champion women’s rights. Our country will be a step closer to women’s equality when every woman who decides to have an  abortion  is able to do so in a safe and legal manner.  

We owe such enabling environment to our mothers, sisters, and daughters who risked their health and lives by making the difficult decision to self-induce unsafe  abortion  and most especially to the women and adolescent girls who were hospitalized, threatened by health care providers, and those who died because of our long-standing restrictive  abortion  laws. 

Our rule of law is governed by secular standards, not religious standards.  To uphold women’s rights to equality and eliminate discrimination, women must have access to safe and legal  abortion . Philippine law must uphold secular standards, human rights, and public health.  

We should all should work towards a humane society where no woman should die from unsafe  abortion . Making  abortion  safe and legal will save the lives of women.  –  Rappler.com 

Clara Rita Padilla is the founder and executive director of EnGendeRights. She spearheaded the submission of the request for inquiry to the CEDAW Committee. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Ateneo de Manila University and has been practicing law for over 21 years working in the field of gender, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

Photo of equipment and ultrasonograph from Shutterstock  

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Advocating for Abortion Reform in the Philippines

New brief by the center and its partner outlines the impact of the country’s restrictive abortion laws and recommends legalization and decriminalization..

In its continuing efforts to advocate for abortion decriminalization and reform in the Philippines, the Center for Reproductive Rights and its regional partner, Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN) , recently developed a brief outlining the impact of the country’s restrictive abortion laws and advocating for abortion decriminalization and reforms aligning with international human rights standards.   

In Brief: Unveiling the Realities of Laws on Abortion in the Philippines examines the country’s abortion laws—including their origins and restrictions—and the laws’ real-life impact on the health and rights of Filipino women and girls.  

In addition, the brief outlines human rights standards on abortion and details recommendations by UN treaty bodies that have called on the Philippines to legalize and decriminalize abortion.

“This brief will serve as a crucial tool for building human rights-based advocacy around abortion in the Philippines,” said Jihan Jacob, the Center’s Associate Director of Legal Strategies for Asia. “It will demystify the national law and its impact on Filipino women and girls and empower the civil society, media, legal professionals and the public in demanding for a long overdue national law reform in line with international human rights standards.”

Abortion Decriminalization 

In the Philippines, abortion decriminalization is a necessary step to fully realize Filipinos’ fundamental human rights. It would involve, at a minimum, the removal of abortion from the criminal law framework and the criminal justice system.

Watch a brief video explaining abortion decriminalization here.

Highlights from the Philippines brief include:

• The country’s Revised Penal Code (RPC)—which has its origins in antiquated colonial Spanish law—prevents access to abortion by threatening anyone having an abortion or performing or aiding an abortion with imprisonment for up to six years.  
• The 1987 Philippine Constitution directs a state policy that is required to “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” The directive has justified abortion only on the limited ground of protecting the life of the pregnant woman.  
• Despite constitutional guarantees on a range of fundamental rights relating to abortion—such as life, health, and privacy—as well as the country’s ratification of major international human rights treaties, the Philippine government has failed to repeal its restrictive abortion laws.
• The laws’ restrictive legal framework has had a harmful impact on women’s health and rights, with several studies demonstrating an increasing trend in induced and potentially unsafe abortion rates in the country.  

“The restriction on abortion in the Philippines has increased the stigma relating to abortion and has led abortion seekers to find alternative means for an abortion. We see this with the increasing number of requests we receive asking for advice for unintended pregnancies,” said Kristine Chan of Filipino Freethinkers and PINSAN. “We also receive personal stories of being unable to secure proper post-abortion care due to fear and stigma.”

“To be a genuine champion in advancing human rights and promoter of gender equality, the Philippines must repeal its abortion provisions under the RPC and remove any unnecessary restrictions to access abortion.” In Brief: Unveiling the Realities of Laws on Abortion in the Philippines

Click here to receive email updates from the Center.

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A Human-Rights-Based Approach

Positioning the realities of abortion and the impact of the law in the Philippines in a human rights framework, the brief notes that international human rights law recognizes the right to decide if and when to continue with a pregnancy as a fundamental human right.

The brief outlines the specific recommendations made by five different UN treaty bodies—including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee against Torture, and the Human Rights Committee—in calling on the Philippines to review its abortion laws and take action to legalize and decriminalize abortion.

“Hopefully, with the help of the changes discussed in this brief, we can look toward a future free from unsafe abortions and the stigma surrounding it,” added Chan.

Read the full brief here: 

>>In Brief: Unveiling the Realities of Laws on Abortion in the Philippines

The Center’s Work in the Philippines: Learn about the Center’s work in the Philippines to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights—including reforming abortion laws, increasing access to post-abortion care services, and ending child marriage.

Tags: Philippine constitution , Philippines abortion reform , Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network , PINSAN , Philippines abortion laws , Abortion in the Philippines , Abortion decriminalization , Philippines

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Why decriminalizing abortion is not possible in the Philippines

Before the last national elections, as I was going through the platforms of senatorial and congressional candidates, I noticed that some of them said they will work for the “decriminalization of abortion.”

With the June 24, 2022 landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, which ruled that there is no such thing as a “constitutional right to abortion,” those intended moves on the part of these now elected lawmakers would seem to be passé. Now, the trend in the United States is to protect the life of the unborn by enacting state laws that will prohibit abortion.

The majority opinion of the US Supreme Court was written by Justice Samuel Alito. It is a masterpiece of philosophical and legal reasoning, and research on the history of the criminal nature of abortion in English and American jurisprudence. We can say that it is common sense which tells us that abortion is the killing of an innocent person who does not even have the capacity to defend himself. In our own language, we call a pregnant woman “nagdadalang-tao” (someone who is carrying within herself another human being). We naturally think she has inside her another person.

Decriminalizing abortion means removing the status of abortion as a crime. Laws have a role to play in the moral education of a society. When the laws remove the criminal status of a crime like abortion, it is teaching society that you may commit abortion and the state will not punish you. Go ahead. You can do it. The act is not banned.

In the context of the Philippines, the decriminalization of abortion is not possible because of our basic law, the Constitution . In Article II Section 12 it says, “[The state] shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” How else can the state protect the life of the unborn except by banning abortion and imposing penalties on those who take away the life of the unborn? In the same way that Justice Alito repeated several times in his piece that there is no such thing as a right to abortion, it might be worth repeating that it is not possible to decriminalize abortion in the Philippines given our Constitution and given our culture and traditions.

Because abortion is prohibited in the Philippines, it is very difficult to get accurate data on the number of abortions performed in the country. There are only estimates that range from 600,000 to even over a million for the last year. This is not a small number to say the least. This is a real problem for our society. But decriminalizing abortion is not the solution. As the experience of the US shows, decriminalizing it made the problem worse.

Like poverty, abortion is a complex problem that will require a complex and manifold solution. It is above all a moral problem. The Catholic Church has always advocated the moral education of people so that their mores might conform to right reasoning about their sexuality and morality. At the root of the problem about unwanted pregnancies and abortions is difficulty about virtues related to human sexuality. Chastity is the virtue that is at stake here. It is grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted as meaning “don’t do this or that” or “being a killjoy.” Understood well, it means love, affirmation, and happiness in life.

The Church has also fought for the defense of the dignity of each human person. In the case of abortion, she has fought for respecting the dignity of both the mother and the unborn child. What happens in an abortion is that both the mother and the baby are reduced to and manipulated as commodities. Their personhoods are destroyed and eliminated. The existence of the post abortion stress syndrome attests to the destruction of the person of the women who committed abortion. They find it very difficult to live with the thought, “I killed my own baby!”

It might be better for our lawmakers to think about how to help those mothers who are contemplating having an abortion solve their problems and difficulties. They need counseling, financial help, moral support, livelihood, education. They don’t need the decriminalization of abortion.

FR. CECILIO L. MAGSINO [email protected]

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Guest Essay

A Dismissed Abortion Case Points to Internal Tensions and Dysfunction at the Supreme Court

By Linda Greenhouse

Ms. Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

Given the breathtaking sweep of the Supreme Court’s decisions in the final days of its term, it’s easy to overlook a decision that had no sweep at all because it was a decision not to decide.

I’m referring to the court’s dismissal of the case about whether Idaho can violate federal law by barring hospitals from performing emergency abortions for women whose pregnancies present a severe threat not necessarily to their life but to their health, including their future fertility.

Last Thursday, nine weeks after hearing the argument, the court dismissed the case as “ improvidently granted ,” meaning that the court, upon reflection, should not have accepted the case for review. The litigation in the lower federal courts involved a dispute over Idaho’s defiance of that federal law. The case now returns to the lower courts, where it stood before the Supreme Court intervened on the state’s behalf.

This unexpected turn obviously pales in significance beside the court’s aggressive dismantling of the administrative state and its generous grant of substantial immunity to Donald Trump. Dismissal of a case, which happens maybe once or twice a term, has no formal meaning as a precedent and usually not much meaning at all. But it seems to me that the fate of this particular case, Moyle v. United States , has much to tell us about the Supreme Court at a supremely fraught moment. Its brief life on the court’s docket opens a window on the court’s internal tensions more revealing than the carefully polished opinions through which the justices usually speak.

In every way that counts, Moyle represents an astonishing institutional failure. Everything about the court’s acceptance of the case was irregular from the start. The justices plucked Idaho’s appeal off the court’s “shadow docket” of cases that don’t arrive as ordinary petitions for review but rather as urgent requests for some form of emergency relief. Idaho sought a stay from an injunction issued by a federal district judge barring the state from applying its recently enacted abortion ban to women with urgent health reasons for terminating a pregnancy.

Idaho’s Defense of Life Act permits abortion only to save a woman’s life or in cases of rape or incest, while a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, requires hospitals to provide medically indicated emergency care for any condition, either by treating the patient in the emergency room or by arranging a transfer to another hospital. In those circumstances, the Federal District Court held, the 38-year-old federal law pre-empted Idaho’s abortion ban.

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