Reply #66: Doctor performed abortions were (and are) common in the Philippines

[hack89]

In countries like the Philippines, where induced abortion is against the law,3* many women nevertheless seek an abortion—despite conditions that may put their health at risk—rather than give birth to children they cannot care for or do not want. A study using an indirect methodology estimated that in 1994, there were 400,000 induced abortions in the country and 80,000 women hospitalized for complications of induced abortion.4 The Department of Health of the Philippines reported that 12% of all maternal deaths in 1994 were the result of illegal abortion.5

Studies from the 1970s onward have shown that despite the law's severity, abortion appears to be widely practiced.6 Evidence from the mid-1990s indicates that Filipino women of all social classes and backgrounds are having induced abortions.7 They do so under varying circumstances, ranging from safe medical procedures performed for better-off women by trained personnel to procedures in extremely unsafe conditions for poor women who cannot afford to pay for a surgical abortion. The evidence of a survey of health professionals in the mid-1990s suggests that about one-third of women seeking an abortion obtain it from a doctor or nurse, but a high proportion of women consult traditional practitioners or attempt to induce the abortion themselves.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3114005.html