Due to the restrictive abortion law, about 610,000 women are forced to induce abortion unsafely with at least three women dying every day and 100,000 hospitalized from unsafe abortion complications. These women are at risk of dying when they induce abortion unsafely through persons lacking the necessary skills, in an environment not conforming to minimal medical standards, using tablets without access to proper information or to a trained person if they need help, or by insertion of foreign objects.
In an effort to save women’s lives, the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN) is proposing a bill to decriminalize abortion in the Philippines. Atty. Clara Rita Padilla, initiated the drafting of the bill — “Act Decriminalizing Induced Abortion to Save the Lives of Women, Girls, and Persons of Diverse Gender Identities, Amending Article 256-259 of the Revised Penal Code.”
“The restrictive, colonial, and antiquated 1930 Revised Penal Code abortion law never reduced the num-ber of women inducing abortion,” said Padilla. “It has only endangered the lives of hundreds of thou-sands of Filipino women who are forced to undergo unsafe abortion.”