Saturday, August 04, 2007 Editorial: Abortion blues
THE recent report about abortion cases in the Visayas region is quite alarming. A study conducted by Alan Guttmacher Institute revealed that about 17 women in every thousand in the Visayas submit themselves to abortion to stay away from unwanted or unplanned pregnancy.
Furthermore, a study on unintended pregnancies in the Philippines also showed that abortion cases in the Visayas have increased by more than 50 percent after records showed an average of 11 cases per thousand women aged 15-49 years old went through the procedure in 1994 compared to 17 as last reported in year 2000.
The Guttmacher study showed that unintended pregnancy is the main cause of abortion, which has become a common occurrence despite its being illegal under the law.
According to the report, nearly half of all pregnancies or 1.43 million of about 3.1 million pregnancies in the country are unintended, a third of which are ended through abortion.
With these facts and figures presented by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, these simply show that Filipino women especially in the Visayas remain to have no choice but to adhere to what is "illegal" as their way to survive from forthcoming "crisis" in their family. Yes, aborting an innocent fetus inside the womb of a woman is a sin, or, an illegal act both in the law of God and law of men.
However, there are three most common instances why a woman or a girl submits herself to abortion.
First, there are some women saying they submit to abortion even though they know it is a sin because they say that they still have the chance later to ask for forgiveness from God.
What is important for them is their very present survival thinking that getting pregnant again would mean another "crisis" for her or for her family. Meaning, an unplanned pregnancy at the midst of a big family is something like a "disaster".
Second, there are also cases like some women or girls who really submit to intentional abortion for the reason that they don't want to get pregnant first because they value their standing in society. Most of these women or girls are the "happy-go-lucky" ones or the socialites especially the commercial models, actresses, among others whose professions require them to maintain a sexy body.
And third, there are also some women who really need to go through the process for health reasons. Meaning, abortion is really an unabated case not only in the Visayas but anywhere in the Philippines. It's a sin but we also need to consider "justifiable" reasons why some of our women are submitting to this kind of immoral act.
Perhaps, we are now ready or have an open mind to hear their reasons why they have to go through an abortion. After all, women who submit to abortion need not be condemned but are asking for understanding for them to rise above the sins they committed.
