What is your opinion about the practice of family planning? Are you for it or against it?
I agree with the practice of family planning, especially for people who actively engage in sexual activity but do not want to conceive a child or are not yet ready to have another one. Women of childbearing age should and must engage in a variety of family planning methods based on their personal preferences. Various family planning methods should be made available, accessible, and financially accessible to everybody to take into consideration the people from low socioeconomic backgrounds who want to use family planning but have been unable to do so due to misconceptions, misinformation, and financial constraints. Furthermore, as owners of their own bodies, women, couples, and even teenagers should be allowed to have the right to choose whether or not to become pregnant, as well as how frequently they wish to become pregnant.
This could help to lower maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity rates as well as prevent women from undergoing unsafe abortions. Poverty can also be lessened because it causes low birth rates, which saves money and reduces the number of children who are starving and malnourished.
Are you in favor of the Reproductive Health Law and its provisions? Elaborate your answer.
I am in favor of the Reproductive Health Law, but not for some of its provisions.
Minors' access to family planning has been limited since the government now requires written consent from their guardians or parents before they are allowed to use various methods including birth control methods. In our country, Tabei et al. (2021) discovered that teenagers who do not live with either of their parents are more likely to become pregnant. This implies that many of them are sexually active but do not seek out family planning services because they would have to inform and obtain permission from their parents first. Considering our country’s culture as a predominantly Christian country, sex is only considered legal if it’s practiced by married couples. So, those who were secretly engaging in such activities were being left with no choice but to practice sex without contraception.
The Philippines currently has the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate in East Asia and the Pacific, which has risen considerably in recent years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This new provision in the bill will not help lower these rates but will instead help them increase more.
In my opinion, minors' access to these family planning methods or their choice to use birth control methods should be kept confidential, and not require their parent's approval. Of course, parental involvement is essential for minors, but parents must recognize that their children are at a stage in their lives when they are disobedient and interested or curious to do such things being freely experienced by adults. They are entitled to their own body, so they must have the choice and the right to what to do with it, but they still need to be educated in order for them to avoid various complications and sexually transmitted diseases.
References:
Philippine Commission on Women. (n.d.). Republic act 10354: The responsible parenthood and reproductive health act of 2012. https://pcw.gov.ph/republic-act-10354/
Tabei, K., Cuisia-Cruz, E. S. S., Smith, C., & Seposo, X. (2021). Association between Teenage Pregnancy and Family Factors: An Analysis of the Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey 2017. Healthcare, 9(12), 1720. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9121720
UNFPA Philippines. (n.d.). Family planning. https://philippines.unfpa.org/en/node/15304