Philippine lawmakers to push family planning bill

Jennifer Cocks

November 12, 2010

4:30 pm

This past Thursday, Philippine lawmakers claimed they will attempt to pass a bill that encourages family planning. The Philippines has had recent exponential growth as the population has doubled in the last 30 years, far exceeding the economic growth of the country. As a mostly Catholic nation, birth control is not practiced; this new legislation is being introduced as a way to endorse “responsible parenthood…not [endorsing] any particular birth control method.” A representative of the women’s party stated in the article that “the proposed law will limit unsafe abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies caused by a lack of knowledge of family planning methods.” The statistics of abortions and subsequent complications are high in the Philippines; the numbers are estimated to be 560,000 women aborting pregnancies in 2008 and 90,000 suffering complications with about 1,000 dying from more fatal complications.

This article directly corresponds to what we’ve been talking about in class these past few weeks. Catholicism discourages birth control and as a result, the Philippines has high birth rates (approximately 26 births per 1,000 Filipinos- CIA world factbook). However, their healthcare, sanitation, and education systems have improved and reduced the death rate (approximately 5 deaths per 1,000 people- CIA world factbook). This exponential increase in population- the result of longer lives and large families- means they are in the third stage of the demographic transition model. I think this new bill will help control the birth rate and push the Philippines into the fourth stage of the demographic transition model. The bill proposal includes information about family planning and sex education which will help the women in more remote areas understand family planning methods. Since the current national philosophy of “family planning is the parent’s responsibility” isn’t effective enough at reducing population growth at the moment, this bill is necessary, despite the church’s opposition. This bill’s intention is to safeguard women and simultaneously address the population growth as family planning will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus improve women’s health. With any luck, implementing the law will reduce the number of abortions necessary and thus help eliminate complications from abortions from the “top ten reasons women seek hospital care” in the Philippines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/11/AR2010111101825.html

CIA World Factbook Stats:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html