Life worth fighting for

This column prides itself with being able to share its space with other people who express their views, whether supportive or opposing, but always in the interest of being able to better understand burning issues of the day, and more importantly, coming up with suggestions or reasonable solutions.

Last week, we raised concern over what I felt as being senseless maternal deaths – one woman in every 452 live births. These mothers’ deaths could have been avoided if only we had more hospitals, more qualified birth attendants, better obstetric health care systems, or more money for our government to spend on the right health delivery.

Manuel Felix G. Abejo Jr. has taken time to send us his views on the problems that have taken the lives of too many Filipinas in giving birth to their children. We are reprinting here his thoughts on the subject, hopefully to come up with a solution to this urgent issue.

Following is Abejo’s letter: “I chanced upon your article “Senseless Maternal Death” in Philippine Star. It appears to be pushing for the passing of HB 4244 (The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011) into law as soon as possible.

Preventing pregnancies

“I have read HB 4244 several times. The primary solution it envisions to contribute toward lowering maternal mortality rate is by preventing pregnancies through contraception and a veiled provision for abortion in the term “emergency obstetric care services.”

“But the State has no right to compel couples not to beget children. It is a human right of every couple to decide whether or not to form a family. The accusation alleging some couples are irresponsible in begetting children beyond their capability to support is not sufficient reason for the State to dictate to them to practice contraception.

“If the State is truthfully serious in lowering maternal mortality rate, it should enact laws that target the real cause of maternal mortality: poor birthing facilities and lack of skilled staff.

“HB 4244 does not have provisions for improving birthing facilities. The bill does not envision to assist couples who wish to have children. It is skewed to favoring pregnancy-prevention which is one-sided and unfair.

Causes of maternal mortality

“I stumbled upon a 2008 Time magazine article on maternal mortality (www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842278,00.html). It identified some of the causes of maternal mortality, which are as follows: 1. Low access to well-equipped clinics or hospitals; 2. Lack of properly trained and adequately-paid medical professionals; 3. Low availability of necessary medicines; 4. Unsanitary traditional practices; 5. Well-entrenched traditions and fatalistic attitudes to maternal mortality; 6. Lack of government funds for maternity health care; and 7. Lack of political will of government decision makers.

“With HB 4244, the State is proposing a wrong solution to the problem; it is “barking at a wrong tree.” Our political authorities should, instead, work on solving why public funds are not effectively translated to better local government facilities and skilled health staff: fight graft and corruption.”

A closer look at HB 4244

First of all, I thank our reader, Manuel Abejo, for reading my column last week, and for responding. This has made me go back to the original text of House Bill 4244 while wondering if I had missed out on some important facts.

I am a person not averse to accepting the use of contraceptive measures, more so if a mother’s health or her baby’s is at risk should there be the possibility of a pregnancy. And so, I had searched what I thought could be a bias in my reading, or for not failing to read between the lines.

What I have understood from the bill in its current state is that the use of contraceptives is one of the objectives, but not limited to – and only if and when a couple voluntarily decides to resort to this measure of preventing a pregnancy.

Maternal delivery care

Two important provisions of HB 4244 deal with maternal delivery care. In fact, the bill’s Section 5 (which comes after Title, Declaration of Policy, Guiding Principles and Definition of Terms) calls for the employment of “an adequate number of midwives through regular employment or service contracting.”

This provision mandates for all local governments to ensure a minimum ratio of one fulltime skilled birth attendant for every 150 deliveries per year, to be based on the annual number of actual deliveries or live births for the past two years.

Section 6, on the other hand, states that each province and city, with the assistance of the Department of Health, shall establish or upgrade hospitals with adequate and qualified personnel, equipment and supplies to be able to provide emergency obstetric and neonatal care.

A supporting clause in the section seeks for at least one hospital for every 500,000 population that has comprehensive emergency obstetric and neonatal care and four hospitals or other health facilities with basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care.

These two provisions, if passed into law, should ensure that there will be more health workers who can take care of our mothers at the time of their delivery.

Family planning

It’s true that the bill contains several provisions on family planning but none of these prohibit parents from having children – only helping them make an informed choice.

My belief is that Filipino couples should be able to prepare and plan for family life, including the number of children they should have, and more importantly, how to raise them to become productive citizens of the country who will eventually become responsible parents of their own children.

Please be assured that I am God-fearing, and will be the first to condemn any man who criminally aborts a life, more so one that is as helpless as a growing fetus in a mother’s womb.

And I too have my dreams that every Filipino mother who gives birth to her child will live to enjoy the blessings of human life.

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.