depressive truth: abortion in the PH

For over a century, abortion has been criminalized in the Philippines. The criminal provisions on abortion
do not contain any exceptions allowing abortion, including to save the life of the pregnant woman or to
protect her health. Women who undergo abortion for any reason, may be punished by imprisonment
for two to six years. Physicians and midwives who perform abortions in the Philippines with the consent
of a pregnant woman may face up to six years in prison under the Revised Penal Code.

Based on a study, in 1994, there were 400,000 abortions performed illegally in the Philippines and
80,000 hospitalizations of women for abortion-related complications; It was reported in 2005 that
official estimates then ranged from 400,000 to 500,000 and rising. Seventy percent of unwanted
pregnancies in the Philippines end in abortion, according to the World Health Organization.
Approximately 4 in 5 abortions in the Philippines are for economic reasons, often where a woman
already has several children and cannot care for another. One hundred thousand people end up in the
hospital every year due to unsafe abortions, according to the Department of Health, and 12% of all
maternal deaths in 1994 were due to unsafe abortion. Some hospitals refuse to treat complications of
unsafe abortion, or operate without anesthesia, as punishment for the patients.

The 2004 national survey have also shown that 90% of the women who have abortions are Catholic, and
that 70% have some high school education. There are also regional differences in abortion rates. Metro
Manila has the highest rate at 52 per 1,000 women. This figure is almost double the national average.
The rest of Luzon has a rate of 27 per 1,000 women, while Mindanao and Visayas have a similar rate of
18 and 17 per 1,000 women respectively. As a result of the criminal abortion law and the discriminatory
environment in the Philippines, women are left without a means to control their fertility, exposed to
unsafe abortions, and made vulnerable to abuse in the health system.