Reproductive Justice needed for Manila women...

[the_future_modernes]

PHILIPPINES:Women Clamour for Contraceptives

MANILA, May 9, 2011 (IPS) - In a small women's clinic in the congested community of San Andres Bukid in the Philippine capital, a mother of 11 is availing herself of family planning services for the first time in her life.

After a counselling session with a health worker, she decides to get her first dose of Depo Provera, a hormonal contraceptive given via injection. Never before has she used anything to prevent pregnancy.

"My husband does not want to use a condom because he doesn’t feel good when we have sex," Aida Bensi tells IPS.

The Bensis are typical in Manila, where couples have an average of five to eight children, says Lina Bacalando, a community health worker for the non-profit group Likhaan Centre for Women’s Health. The city of over 1.5 million is said to have one of the highest population densities of any major city in the world.

And family size is large in Manila because of a city ordinance passed in 2000, which promoted only natural family planning and discouraged all other methods.

That ordinance was the brainchild of a former Manila mayor who also happened to be devoutly Catholic. In addition to preventing women from accessing modern contraceptives from public health facilities, it also had a chilling effect on health service providers who faced reprisals for giving women information about modern methods of family planning.

The current Manila mayor, Alfredo Lim, has not revoked the city ordinance but has allowed non-government organisations (NGOs) like Likhaan and private groups to hold family planning seminars and distribute free contraceptives. However, health centres rely on donations for their supplies.MORE

I wish that jackass of mayor who invoked that ordinance was forced to get pregnant, and see how he liked it. Asshole.And at some point, the progressives in the Catholic Church will win through and bang some sense into its policies yes? Can we hope?

Comments

[silveradept]

Considering the Catholic Church will excommunicate everyone involved in a medically necessary abortion, I don't think they're going to move very fast on the issue of contraceptives.