DAVAO CITY — City Councilor Angela Angging Librado-Trinidad has underscored the need in Davao City for an institution and a piece of legislation that will address reproductive health care for women.
Librado was reacting to the series of discoveries of aborted fetuses dumped in the citys trash bins. She has been pushing to enact an ordinance that will comprehensively address womens health because abortion, she said, has become one of the options many women resort to especially for those belonging to low-income groups who have unwanted pregnancies.
Such practice only describes the present culture and mindset of most women today who are not well-equipped or fully aware that they have other alternatives, and who are deprived of much needed services by the state, the councilor, who has a young daughter, said in a statement.
In committee hearings conducted by the City Councils Committee on Women, Children & Family Relations last year with the Department of Health, the City Health Office, NGOs and womens group representatives, Librado stressed the need for a reproductive health ordinance that will create a reproductive health clinic to be managed by the City Health Office.
The said ordinance describes provisions for women to primarily access affordable birthing homes to deal with the prohibitive costs of hospital maternity services. There are also provisions to provide women with pre- and post-natal care to address the poor delivery of health services especially among women, as well as provide reproductive health and rights education.
The Reproductive Health Care Act providing for the establishment of a Reproductive Health Clinic will also design and implement sustained reproductive health education program for women and men.
In safeguarding the total well being of women, especially those women who have gotten pregnant by accident, the full responsibility for birth control falls solely on them based on informed decisions and choices. But without mechanisms and access to such services, we see more and more women getting pregnant and having unsafe abortions, Librado said.
She emphasized that because of unsafe abortion this also endangers the life of the mother, citing the case of a local coed who died of infection and several complications after undergoing a procedure to abort the fetus in her womb.
Librado, who chairs the Committee on Women, Children and Family Relations, added that reproductive health is a primary concern of the city government and given this, the Department of Health with the City Health Office as well as other line agencies and sectors must recognize the urgency of addressing the issue.
[tags]davao today, angela librado, abortion, fetus, reproductive health, davao city[/tags]
Gender Issues
