BAGUIO CITY -- THE GOVERNMENT and the Church should rethink their position on population management because of the burden this has given to women who also suffer from physical abuse if they refuse to have sex with their husbands or partners, according to Gabriela Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan.

“If a woman refuses to have sex with her husband, bugbugan blues na iyan (physical abuse comes next). The reproductive health of a woman should always be considered. She cannot give birth [without proper spacing] because her health will suffer. The burden of fertility management always falls on the women,” Ilagan told reporters here on Friday.

She was guest during a forum on women and mining, which was organized here by Innabuyog Gabriela and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development.

Women’s choices

Ilagan said while many Catholic women follow the doctrines of the Catholic Church, they also exercise their right to choose whether they would adopt natural or artificial family planning methods.

“In fact there are some Catholic priests who advise women to follow what their conscience dictates when it comes to taking care of their bodies. So these are the Church officials’ way of providing options to women,” Ilagan said.

She said the Church and the government should look beyond the debate on the use of artificial family planning methods.

Address deaths

“Millions of women need services [to ensure their] reproductive health. Many women are dying, so why not address this?” Ilagan said.

In a statement, the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), citing figures from the United Nations Population Fund in 2006, said the Philippines has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Southeast Asia, with about 10 mothers dying every day.

“Goal 5 of the Millennium Development Goals envisions a reduction in the maternal mortality rate by 75 percent, from 1990 to 2015, along with the increasing access to reproductive health by 2015,” the statement said.

No abortion

“However, the country’s progress in this area has been very slow, with the maternal mortality rate declining by only about 22 percent in 13 years.”

PLCPD said the reproductive health bills pending in Congress do not promote abortion.

“The issue… has long been clarified. Nowhere in the proposed reproductive health bill does it state that abortion is allowed,” it said.

PLCPD cited Section 3 of a substitute bill that the House committee on health approved, which states that “abortion remains a crime.”

The bill, according to PLCPD, however, asks the government to “ensure that women seeking care for post-abortion complications [would] be treated and counseled in a humane, nonjudgmental and compassionate manner.”

Supporters of the reproductive health bill are at the receiving end of a campaign to demonize them launched by some leaders of the Catholic Church.

Several bishops have urged priests to refuse communion to public figures who are known to support the bill.

The move was heavily criticized by supporters of the bill.

Ben de Leon, president of the Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc. (FFPDI), said in a previous interview quoted by the Inquirer that he saw nothing un-Christian in what reproductive health advocates are doing.

“We are giving the right information about contraceptives and the reproductive health situation everywhere we go,” De Leon said by phone on Thursday.

“We talk about all forms of contraception, including natural family planning. We neither withhold information nor mislead with wrong information,” he said.

De Leon said FFPDI studies showed that 8 percent of almost 1.7 million Filipinos born every year were born to mothers between 15 and 19 years old.

Almost a third of Filipino women become mothers before reaching 21, he said.