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Showing posts with the label women rights

The Way of the Unborn

THE irony of abortion had been captured by the often funny late US president Ronald Reagan who said: “Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.” What he did not explicitly say was that those who have not been born will never advocate abortion. But here in the Philippines, despite the criminal ban, women can get away with it in droves. The New York-based human rights group, Center for Reproductive Rights, noted that an estimated 560,000 of induced abortions took place in 2008 alone. And from this mothers who chose to intentionally terminate pregnancy, 90,000 (or 16 percent) sought treatment for complications; while a thousand women died. Despite its proponents’ assertion that abortion is relatively safe when performed in clinics, once the criminal ban is lifted, it remains foolish to presume that it is. Not only because scientific trials that back up the drugs used in abortion can only assure a probability for safety, it is common sense that... [ Read more.

Against the Culture of Death

THE Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a New York-based human rights group, released on July 14 a study entitled “Forsaken Lives: The Harmful Impact of the Philippine Criminal Abortion Ban” to provide an argument on their call to have abortion legalized in the country. The study mentioned the more frequently used unsafe abortion methods such "as hilot (abdominal massage), use of a catheter, and intake of a labor-inducing drug.” It argues that our anti-abortion laws “violate international law and major political commitments” in protecting women’s health and rights... ( Read more. ) This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 27 October 2010.