Senate bills offer childbirth as ‘alternative to abortion’

END CHAPTER. After acting as impeachment court for the trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, the Senate is urged by militant groups to act on pressing issues, like wage hike. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Two senators on opposite sides of the reproductive health debate may have finally found common ground.

Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada have filed separate bills seeking to curb abortion by putting up a “national program” providing women with what they call “alternatives to abortion.”

Sen. Manuel Villar has also authored a related measure strengthening state protection of the unborn child from “abortion and other abortive acts.” His proposed “New Anti-Abortion Act” increases the penalty for abortion.

Estrada, the Senate president pro tempore, had earlier authored a version of the Protection of the Unborn Child Act, which Santiago saw as a counter-measure to her RH bill.

Senate Bill No. 2865—An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population and Development—is pending on second reading.

In the explanatory note to his SB No. 798, Estrada described childbirth as a “viable and positive alternative to abortion.” He said the bill would “empower those facing unplanned or crisis pregnancies to choose childbirth rather than abortion.”

Like Estrada’s bill, Santiago’s SB No. 1725 provides “alternative-to-abortion services” in the form of “information and counseling that promote childbirth instead of abortion.”

Pregnant women are also to be assisted in making an “informed decision regarding the alternatives of adoption or parenting with respect to their child.”

Estrada’s bill provides “additional services and assistance” to help women “carry their child to term.” Services include “self-administered pregnancy testing, baby food, maternity and baby clothing, and baby furniture.”

The bill also provides for an information campaign on “prenatal care, childbirth, adoption, parenting, chastity (or abstinence).” Priority will be women belonging to the low-income bracket.

“Women, confronted with unplanned or crisis pregnancy, are often left with the impression that abortion is the only choice that they have in dealing with their difficult circumstances,” Estrada said.

“This is due to their lack of accurate information, supportive counseling and other assistance regarding adoption and parenting alternatives to abortion.”

The Department of Health on Monday announced that it would give away contraceptives worth around P500 million this year to address the problem of rising maternal mortality.

According to the 2011 Family Health Survey, the number of Filipino women who died while giving birth increased from 162 per 100,000 live births in 2009 to 221 last year.

Villar’s SB No. 2887 declares that the unborn child “shall be protected from abortive acts including the use, administration, dispensing injection or delivery by whatever means or substances, medicines in any form.”

Also considered as abortifacients are “abdominal massages or ‘hilot,’ suction, saline injection, hysterectomy, dilation and curettage (DNC) when such are clearly carried out or performed to induce or cause abortion and for no valid medical or health reasons.”

Villar said his bill was meant to “recognize the unborn child’s basic right to life, to protection of his or her welfare against such acts which place the unborn child in danger of being harmed, injured or killed.”