Draft Statement: (Not Yet Official) Save Lives: Increase Spending for Reproductive Health Care Including Family Planning

Save Lives: Increase Spending for Reproductive Health Care Including Family Planning

A joint statement of the University of the Philippines College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD) and the UP Center for Women's Studies (UPCWS)


Every day 11 Filipina women die from pregnancy and birth complications. . Every year 400,000 Filipinas suffer some form of illness or disability because of giving birth.

The majority of those who die or become ill from childbirth come from poor communities and families who can least afford to lose a mother or a sister or a wife. The health care burden to poor and middle income families of morbidities related to childbirth , can also be devastating.

And yet, we have the capacity to avoid most of the deaths and half of the morbidity related to childbirth. Health experts agree that delivery with a properly trained birth attendant, access to obstetric and new born care , and access to family planning services are effective and doable measures that will ensure better health outcomes for pregnant women and their families.

Of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the Philippines is likely to fail in meeting the goal of reducing maternal mortality rates by 2015. The reason is clear, the Arroyo administration has consistently neglected the services women need. This, despite compelling evidence that major sectors of our society (health, academic, business, labor) and the majority of our people accept the need for contraceptive services.

Today, we reiterate our call, echoed in the promises of the Philippine government and the policy pronouncements of President Benigno Aquino III, to ensure adequate funding for contraceptive supplies as a first step towards ensuring access to family planning services to all women.

Today, we reiterate that access to contraceptives within the framework of informed and free choice is a moral imperative guaranteed by international human rights standards and the Philippine Constitution as well as sentiments of the common citizenry.

With political will, we can yet achieve the health related MDGs, including the MDG on the goal of significantly reducing maternal mortality by 2015. Achieving this will definitely redound the attainment of other related MDGs on gender equaliy, women's empowerment and poverty reduction.

Beyond the political debates, the scientific data, international and local laws, the reality upon which an enlightened and moral policy on family planning must be based is that is saves the lives of women and their children.


September 30, 2010

Contact Persons:

Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, MD, PhD
Director
UPCWS

Amaryllis T. Torres
Dean CSWCD