Non-government group Roots of Health called on the Philippine government to allow adolescent access to family planning commodities and services.
The call was made on Tuesday, February 7, as the Philippine Senate held a committee hearing on three bills that seek to prevent teen pregnancies in the country.
“Roughly half of the health care workers we work with in Palawan do not approve of young people having sex, so when youth try to access services, they are scolded, shamed, and denied services,” said Amina Evangelista-Swanepoel, executive director of Roots of Health, a Palawan-based NGO.
She said “provider bias” is the biggest issue affecting teens’ access to contraceptive commodities and reproductive health services that include prenatal care.
“We urge the protection of adolescent’s rights to access service with specific legislation that will supersede previous age restrictions to accessing these,” said Evangelista-Swanepoel.
She said that at the minimum, the parental consent clause in the Reproductive Health Law should be lowered to youth under 15 years old as was done in the expanded HIV Law.
All three teenage pregnancy prevention bills filed by Sen. Risa Hontiveros (SBN 372), Sen. Imee Marcos (SBN 651), and Sen. Bong Revilla (SBN 1209) call for adolescents who need access to services to get these. But age restrictions in the RH Law allow health providers to refuse young people the services they seek.
Evangelista-Swanepoel also called for training and guidance for healthcare workers in providing “compassionate nonjudgmental care” to ensure that young people get the services they need.
Hontiveros, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, noted that 386,000 Filipino girls (or 6.8% of girls aged 15-19) have begun childbearing in 2021 alone.
Although teen pregnancies in this age range have declined from 13.7% a decade ago, pregnancies among girls aged 10-14 are increasing with 2,113 births recorded in 2020 to 2,299 in 2021.
