Monday, August 2, 2010

A Women's Group Call on Congress to Allow Safe & Legal Abortion

A New York based women's group has appealed to Congress to pass a law allowing a safe and legal abortion in the country. The group cites from their report "Forsaken Lives: The Harmful Impact of the Philippine Criminal Abortion Ban" that a significant number of Filipino women are seeking underground procedures for an abortion that leads them to a more complicated situation while some have lost their lives due to abdominal infections.

While post-abortion services are legal, women who seek them are often harassed or discriminated against by medical health staff when they sought treatment for complications due to an unsafe abortion. Some were even threatened to be reported to an NBI officer giving them more anxiety instead of a relief.

The women's group, Center for Reproductive Rights is an advocacy group that says that it works to advance reproductive freedom as a human right. It said its report was based on their interviews with women who had undergone abortion, hospital authorities, law enforcers and political leaders.

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