EDITORIAL - Luxury of the few

A Filipina mother has a one in 140 chance of dying during childbirth, according to data from the United Nations Children’s Fund. In industrialized countries, the odds are one in 8,000. The UNICEF estimates that 11 mothers die every day in the Philippines, or over 4,000 a year, due to pregnancy and complications arising from childbirth.

When maternal deaths are high, so is infant mortality. The UNICEF, in a 2009 report, also noted that about 50 percent of the deaths of children under the age of five in this country occur within four weeks after birth. The UNICEF representative in the Philippines, Vanessa Tobin, urged the country to do more in bringing down the high incidence of maternal mortality, noting the link between the health of mothers and their newborns.

There is no mystery behind the high death rate. A visit to any government hospital will show that the country cannot cope with a booming population and the best economic growth rate that has been attained so far still cannot keep pace with rapid population growth. In several government hospitals, new mothers share not just rooms but beds with other mothers. Overcrowding in hospitals has been blamed for sepsis that has killed babies.

The problem could be eased if all Filipino women are given full information about their reproductive health and the choices open to them for spacing their children. Family planning has become a luxury of the affluent in this country, with impoverished women deprived even of information about their own bodies.

The Reproductive Health Bill, which awaits approval by Congress, seeks to bring that information to the poor and undereducated, to the sector that most needs to make informed choices about responsible parenthood. Well-heeled women do not need this bill; they learn about their bodies as early as grade school and they can afford to buy contraceptives. They practice safe sex and can understand the Billings method. They can choose not to resort to birth control, safe in the knowledge that they can afford to have as many children as they want.

Within this income group, maternal and infant mortality rates are low. The information, the methods and the choices these women enjoy should be made available to all. That is what the Reproductive Health Bill aims to promote, and the bill must be passed. Reproductive rights should not be a luxury enjoyed only by a few.