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Source: ABS-CBN; April 26, 2003

Filipino Legislator Says Bills Would Legalize Abortion

Manilla, Philipines -- Sen. Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel, Jr. is opposing a legislative proposal that would virtually legalize abortion by granting women the right to prevent or terminate unwanted pregnancies based on the concept that they have full autonomy over their bodies.

Speaking at the Public Forum on Reproductive Health Rights Bill at the Divine Word College, Legaspi City, on Saturday, Pimentel called on lawmakers to reject House Bill 4110 and Senate Bill 2325 that seek to propagate methods of abortion that are, at best, controversial and worst, illegal given the provisions of the Constitution, civil law and penal law on the issue.

"The two bills would make all kinds of contraceptives available to women even if those are abortifacients," he said.

Pimentel said the original explanation of House Bill 4110 when it was filed on December 19, 2001, advocated the legislation of abortion. It was only withdrawn, he said, because it had provoked an outcry from the public that the authors beat a hasty retreat and changed it with a less confrontational one.

According to Pimentel, the proposed legislation, by harping on the supposedly high statistics of women dying of abortion-related causes, would logistically lead to the establishment of so-called "safe abortion facilities" although this is not categorically stated in the bill.

Pimentel said the House Bill 4110, and Senate Bill 2325 espouse population control methods that collide head-on with the Constitution, the Civil Code and Penal Code.

He invoked Article II, section 12 of the Constitution which provides that "the state shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child from conception."

These constitutional provisions, Pimentel said, acknowledges two things:

* that life begins at conception, and

* that the life of the mother is of equal value as the life of the unborn child."

But Pimentel decried that the constitutional dictum that life begins at conception is being disregarded by the proponents of the two bills.

"They say the life does not begin at conception but at implantation. This is crucial to their advocacy because in their minds, methods that prevent implantation are justified because there is no life at conception," he said.