EDITORIAL - Free will

Even the previous administration, led by a president who toed the line of the Catholic Church, belatedly acknowledged that something must be done about the country’s population growth. On Valentine’s Day this year, the Department of Health started giving away condoms in Manila’s flower distribution center, reviving a program that was suspended for years in the name of political expedience.

Now an up-front administration has announced the revival of the family planning program, pursued by a succession of presidents including the devoutly Catholic Corazon Aquino. The program will include providing universal access to reproductive health services, including information on both natural and artificial methods of contraception.

The promotion of reproductive health will be in line with Philippine international commitments. The World Health Organization has long been an advocate of women’s reproductive health. The United Nations has created a new office called UN Women, or United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, whose first head, Michelle Bachelet, assumed office this month. Bachelet, a pediatric epidemiologist, actively promoted women’s reproductive health when she served as the first female president of Chile. UN Women will be fully operational by January 2011.

The Arroyo administration had acknowledged that even the country’s best economic performance under its watch was not felt at the grassroots because economic gains could not keep pace with the rapidly growing population. The lack of knowledge about birth control has also been blamed for the high incidence of unsafe induced abortions in this country. In Quiapo, right outside the church, abortifacient herbs as well as the drug Cytotec (misoprostol) are selling briskly. In the past weeks, fetuses have been dumped in front of churches or in garbage bins. Recently, a woman who gave birth on a flight from the Middle East abandoned the infant in a lavatory garbage bin.

Several local government units provided reproductive health services to the public even during the Arroyo administration, but a national program will have a broader reach. The Aquino administration should forge ahead with its revival of the family planning program. At the very least, the state must present to the public all the options available for spacing pregnancies and planning family size. Even Adam and Eve were given a choice and allowed to exercise free will.