1. What is your opinion about the practice of family planning? Are you for it or against it?
I am absolutely for family planning. I grew up in a very religious family and I can tell that really, religious practices and beliefs affect the perceptions of individuals regarding conception and premarital sex as I, myself, was once a bigoted person about these topics. Through the years, with the help of education and different people with advocacies, I began to understand more why these things exist and why people are standing up for these rights and policies, like the family planning. Such family planning methods has resulted to significant benefits to the mother, children, and even the father that can be proved by looking at statistics about occurrences of unintended pregnancies and unplanned birth, inducing abortions, infant deaths, maternal deaths each year in different countries. And also, looking at a bigger picture, family planning does not only benefit the family, but will also contribute significantly to the community and nation’s economy.
Furthermore, according to Guttmacher institute (2008), preventing pregnancies that are unintended and births that are unplanned which I myself, strongly believe, means:
(1) Improving maternal health and child survival. Helping women avoid becoming pregnant too early, too late or too often benefits them and their children. Meeting the unmet need for contraceptives would further reduce global rates of maternal mortality by 35%, and a three-year interval between births in developing countries would further lower rates of infant mortality by 24% and rates of child mortality by 35%.
(2) Reducing the number of abortions overall, especially unsafe abortion. Closing the gap in the unmet need for contraceptives would further reduce the number of abortions worldwide by 64% each year. More than half of all abortions occurring in developing countries are unsafe, and fewer unsafe abortions would lead to fewer maternal deaths and injuries.
(3) Preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. Improved access to condoms, both male and female, reduces the rate at which STIs, including HIV, are spread. Moreover, to the extent that HIV-positive women are better able to prevent unplanned pregnancies and births, they are also helping to reduce the rate of new HIV infections.
(4) Empowering women. Women who can control the number and timing of their children can take better advantage of educational and economic opportunities, improving their own future and that of their families.
(5) Promoting social and economic development and security. High population growth hampers poor countries’ economic development as their expanding populations compete for limited resources such as food, housing, schools and jobs. Rapid and unsustainable population growth renders societies more unstable and can lead to greater civil unrest.
(6) Protecting the environment. Since so many women worldwide want fewer children than their mothers did, increasing their access to voluntary family planning services will further slow population growth rates. Rapidly growing population exacerbates environmental degradation and strains the world’s resources
2. Are you in favor of the Reproductive Health Law and its provisions? Elaborate your answer.
The Reproductive Health Law or the Republic Act No. 10354 on Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health is a law that provides sexual education, universal access to contraception, maternal care, and fertility control in the Philippines. With its elements enacted in this law which are family planning services; maternal, infant and child health and nutrition including breastfeeding; prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications; adolescent and youth reproductive health guidance and counseling; prevention and management of reproductive tract infections (RTI’s), HIV/AIDS and sexually transmittable infections (STIs); Elimination of violence against women and children and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence; Education and counseling on sexuality and reproductive health; treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers and other gynecologic conditions and disorders; Male responsibility and involvement and Men’s RH; Prevention, treatment and management of infertility and sexual dysfunction; RH education for the adolescents; and Mental health aspect of reproductive health care; I can absolutely say that I am for the RH law.
This law mandates every city and municipality to employ an adequate number of midwives and other skilled attendants which should significantly help a lot of women because currently, there are only 57% of Filipino women that give birth with the assistance of a trained medical professional. There is also the presence of emergency obstetric care which ensures that each province and city has an establishment and operating hospitals with adequate facilities and personnel needed for emergency obstetric care. In terms of hospital-based family planning, the law also secures family planning services like ligation, vasectomy, and intrauterine device (IUD) placement to be available in all government hospitals. Moreover, with this law, the reproductive health products will be considered essential medicines and supplies and will form part of the National Drug Formulary. This will result the government to purchase contraceptives and not merely depend on donations. Lastly, the law also provides for reproductive health education, employer’s responsibilities, and capacity building of community-based volunteer workers.
Summing up, with the increasing prevalence of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, teenage unwanted pregnancy, poverty related to unplanned family capacity, and socioeconomic and community problems regarding reproductive health such as increasing rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and others, there is indeed a need for a law, like the reproductive health law to address these problems immediately. This law helps not only those who are planning to have a family or couples who want to control conception, but it will also help in making the youth aware of the responsibility they have in terms of reproductive health. This also serves us, future nurses, challenges on making the law and its provisions successful, but with proper education and guidance from the government and other health professionals, as well as full cooperation of people in the community, slowly, we will achieve what this law is aiming for.
References:
Cabral, E. (2013). Reproductive Health Law in the Philippines. Journal of the ASEAN Federation of Endocrine Societies, 28(1), 26-27. https://asean-endocrinejournal.org/index.php/JAFES/article/view/48/93.
Guttmacher Institute. (2008). World Population Day-Six Reasons to Support Family Planning. https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2008/07/world-population-day-six-reasons-support-family-planning