Abortion in the Philippines: bill to decriminalise terminations would save women’s lives, its author says

A lawyer and human rights activist has drafted a bill that would remove legal sanctions on having an abortion in the Catholic-majority country

But conservatives continue to make it hard for debate to take place over whether women should be allowed the life-saving procedure

5-MIN READ5-MIN

A banner is displayed in front of a church during a Catholic-organised anti-abortion rally in Manila. The author of a bill to decriminalise abortion in the Philippines says it would save lives and remove the stigma of abortion, which is common despite being illegal. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 1:00pm, 30 Nov 2020Updated: 11:22am, 7 Dec 2020

Filipino lawyer and human rights activist Clara Rita Padilla did not expect a photo she posted on Facebook in May would be so popular. In the picture, she looks sombre as she holds up a copy of a controversial proposed law she had drafted.

“Amid the Covid-19 havoc, here is the bill that I’m finalising to decriminalise abortion in the Philippines,” she wrote. “This bill, when passed into law, can save women’s lives.”

If passed, the bill would remove legal sanctions against abortion in the Philippines, a nation of 106 million people, nearly nine in 10 of them Catholic. Freely available abortion, Padilla says, would help address the constant problem of high numbers of unwanted or abandoned children in the Philippines.

Her social media post has been shared many thousands of times and drawn thousands of reactions. Among them were these comments: “Abortion is murder”; “Don’t resort to killing innocents”; “Letting women have unsafe abortions and having her unborn baby die inside her is murder too”; “Biblically immoral”; “Always pro-choice”; and “How many children borne by raped minors have you adopted so far?”

Atty Clara Rita Padilla is a long-time advocate for women’s rights. Photo: Maro Enriquez

The post revived a long-running debate in the Philippines about whether abortion should be decriminalised in the country. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he “hates” abortion. “I do not know the state of these guys promoting abortion … I hate it,” he said in Baguio in the northern Philippines in 2017. “Family planning is OK. But killing the fetus inside, that’s difficult. The fetus cannot defend itself.”

Four months after putting up her Facebook post, Padilla, along with the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network, or PINSAN, released the proposed bill on September 28, International Safe Abortion Day.