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The abortion rate in the Philippines is estimated to be 25 induced abortions annually per 1,000 women aged 15-49, according to a study, "Estimating the Level of Abortion in the Philippines and Bangladesh," by Susheela Singh of The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Josefina V. Cabigon and Aurora E. Perez of the Population Institute of the University of the Philippines, and Altaf Hossain and Haidary Kamal of the Bangladesh Association for Prevention of Septic Abortion. The Philippine penal code prohibits abortion with no exceptions, although it may be interpreted to permit abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman. Despite the law's severity, abortion appears to be widely practiced.
According to the study, official data on induced abortion do not exist because of the illegality of the procedure. But, using data from women hospitalized for abortion complications and through the use of indirect estimation techniques, the authors estimate that the rate of induced abortions in the Philippines is very close to that of the United States (24 per 1,000 women aged 15-44).
The study findings, featured in AGI's September 1997 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives, document the serious public health problems of maternal mortality resulting from unsafe abortion and the heavy demand for hospital services to treat abortion complications. Each year, 80,000 Filipino women are hospitalized for abortion complications.
The difficulties that women and couples experience in trying to control their family size and to space their births is evident: 16% of pregnancies are resolved by abortion, and an additional 37% are unplanned births. The researchers speculate that high levels of abortion in the mid-1990s are a result of still high levels of nonuse or poor use of contraceptives. The authors suggest that in the Philippines, where abortion is legally restricted, contraceptive counseling and referrals for women being treated for complications of abortion are greatly needed to reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortion. Improvements in contraceptive services, such as extending the network of family planning facilities, strengthening the quality of services and encouraging communication between spouses, are also suggested.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute is a non-profit organization for reproductive health research, policy analysis and public education, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
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© copyright 1997, The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
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