The backstreet abortions may become more common as a United States government aid program plans to stop distributing contraceptives in the Philippines in 2008. This will leave birth control up to the government which under the influence of Catholic Bishops advocates unreliable natural birth control methods rather than the pill and condoms.
Poor people, who make up the majority of the population, rely largely on the US government agency USAID, the main supplier of contraceptives in the country for the past 30 years. But USAID has started phasing out supplies and plans to end the rest of its donation programme in 2008. The agency has said its phase-out is in line with Manila's goal of self-reliance in family planning.
Officials say the central government's reluctance to take up where USAID will leave off will certainly push up the country's rate of abortions. Nearly 80,000 women are treated in hospitals every year for complications from induced abortion, according to health reports, and around 800 women per year die because of unsafe abortion.
"Supplies (of contraceptives) have already run out in many towns and cities so the situation is rather desperate," said Dr Alberto Romualdez, a former health secretary under deposed President Joseph Estrada.
Over half of women who have had an abortion in the Philippines were not using any family planning and of those that were, three-quarters were using natural methods advocated by the government such as rhythm or withdrawal, according to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute.
The population, currently estimated at 89 million, is expected to swell to 142 million by 2040, putting a strain on the infrastructure and jeopardizing poverty alleviation efforts.
Women who abort their foetuses in the Philippines risk a prison sentence of up to six years, while anyone providing help or assisting faces a similar sentence as well as the loss of any medical licence.
Only one in four women have a surgical procedure according to the Guttmacher Institute. The 4,000-15,000 peso cost, usually in private clinics, is beyond the pockets of most women. Over 30 percent ingest either cytotec, an anti-ulcer treatment they can buy in pharmacies, or herbal concoctions, often sold in stalls in front of Churches.
Around 20 percent take hormonal drugs, or aspirin, as well as other medications and alcohol. Some starve themselves or fling themselves down stairs. Most women only succeed in ending their pregnancy after multiple attempts.
Among poor women seeking abortions, over 20 per cent get massages from ‘hilots’ or insert catheters in their vaginas.
Dr Junice Melgar, executive director of Likhaan, a women's health organisation, said a lack of information about artificial contraception and myths, sometimes spread by anti-choice groups about their side-effects was putting some poor people off using them.
Although abortion is rarely discussed publicly in the Philippines,
Many are treated roughly by nurses and doctors who abhor what they have done. Painkillers are sometimes withheld. At least 800 women are estimated to die every year from complications.
Source: Reuters 05/Sept/07