Monday, June 04, 2007 Editorial: Sex and consequence
JUNE is back to school, back to repairing desks, cleaning classrooms, and-ideally-educating youths about sex and its consequences.
Homes and schools should open mature and sensitive discussions of these concerns as one viable option for protecting teenagers from the illegal, invisible but pervasive scourge of abortion.
Although abortion is illegal in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) records 400,000 illegal abortions performed annually, with 80,000 of these ending in hospitalizations due to abortion-related complications.
In 1994, 12 percent of maternal deaths were due to unsafe abortions, according to the DOH. Due to the law and public rejection, two-thirds of Filipino women resort to self-induced abortion or pay quacks to perform this.
“Induced abortion is the fourth leading cause of maternal death in the country,” stresses the first “State of the Philippine Population Report (SPPF)” published by the Commission on Population (Popcom).
In 1994, the Philippine General Hospital treated an average of six cases of induced abortion daily. The actual number of clandestine abortions is placed at four to six times the number treated in government hospitals.
The SPPF report points out that women resorting to clandestine abortion risk death and permanent disability, as well as depression.
Youth speak
“The common denominator (among abortions) is a pregnancy that is ill- timed, unplanned, and unintended,” notes the SPPF.
For many women’s health advocates, empowering women should be the priority. Education can make a woman respect her own dignity and assert her right to demand that others, including her partner, respect her space, needs and aspirations.
While 95 percent of youths are against abortion, there has been an increasing trend among teens to favor premarital sex and be “more open” about virginity.
The 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study (YAFS 3) shows a five percent decline to 85 percent among male respondents favoring virginity; with only a 70-percent approval among women favoring virginity.
One in three youngsters thinks that it is alright for young men to engage in sex prior to marriage, points out the YAFS3. There is an increasing tolerance among older males for women engaging in pre-marital sex (from 13 percent in 1994 to 22 percent in 2002).
Despite increasing liberalism, there is no corresponding trend in the youth’s knowledge about sex. Even with the YAFS 2 study, only one-fourth of the respondents admit feeling comfortable with their level of knowledge regarding sex.
According to anecdotal evidence culled by the Remedios Aids Foundation Inc., a nongovernment organization (NGO) implementing an adolescent reproductive health advocacy in Cebu City, males still make the decisions, even if uninformed or ill-timed, in many heterosexual relationships in and out of school.
Knowledge is power
Families, schools, religious groups and NGOs should be several steps ahead of mass media and peer pressure in providing information and guiding teens.
The YAFS studies showed that knowledge on sex is higher among married young people and those who obtained information from their father, attended population or sex education classes, were religious, and who had previous sexual experience.
According to the Popcom survey, a coed taking part in classroom discussions on sexuality shares that, “The most important thing that we must realize is that we have the capability and the right to decide for ourselves, free from coercion.”
