Pinas Forum

Below is a cause for grave concern. GMA and Cory should be ashamed that they, the females presidents, should show the least concern for women.

The original article-- The missing voices of poor women

In the increasingly shrill debate over reproductive health, the voices of poor Filipino women, those most affected by the problem, remain eerily missing. Why this silence?

A study done in 2000 by a Filipino and international research team found that thousands of Filipino women are in effect practicing family planning through induced abortion. Shrouded in secrecy, it is their method of preventing the birth of another child.

Of the 473,400 Filipino women per year estimated in 2000 to have undergone an abortion (about equally divided between induced and spontaneous), statistics from 1,658 hospitals revealed that 105,000 women wound up in hospital beds from complications, mainly hemorrhaging and infections. An estimated 12 percent, or 12,600, died. How many more never made it to a hospital but met the same fate, or continue to suffer lifelong disabilities, is anyones guess. Research on the subject is taboo in official Catholic circles and viciously attacked by militant pro-life groups. The conspiracy of silence triumphs again.

The conspiracy of silence among Catholics becomes even more appalling because the Church of the Poor exhorts us to listen to the voices of the poor. Although the face of poverty in the Philippines is clearly that of a woman, are Church leaders listening to the voices of poor women? Is the Church of Poor Women enabling women to speak without condemnation about the fear of having another child she knows she cannot properly care forand helping her do something about it? Is the Church of Poor Men teaching Filipino males that marital rights do not include forced sexand eventually another childanytime they feel like it? Will both Church and government offer the meaningful and practical family planning solutions poor women and men seek?