It is difficult to be a young unplanned pregnant woman in the Philippines. For over a century, abortion has been criminalized in our country. Roughly 1,000 women in the Philippines die every year from lack of safe abortions. Others go to jail. The rest, like Patricia, take the risk and spend least $100 to buy illegal abortion drugs. She is only 19.
Abortion has been a taboo topic in Philippine cinema. We are after all a deeply conservative Catholic country. But when cases of teenage pregnancy and self-induced abortions rise every year, it is clear: we need to talk about abortion.
Patricia represents the hundreds of thousands of girls who became pregnant in their teens. About 500 Filipino teenagers become mothers every day. I interviewed poor, young mothers who contemplated abortion but decided to continue with their pregnancy. Their chilling stories mirror a reality we don’t face. The abortion ban may be protecting the unborn, but it’s killing our women too – both literally and figuratively.
As a woman who acknowledges her middle-class privilege, I want to tell the story of those who are not as fortunate. In a third world country, choice is a privilege. It’s true that it takes a village to raise a child, but who will raise the young woman forced to be mother because she had no choice? The Philippines is in a dire political, economic and social turmoil. This story goes beyond abortion. Behind every pregnant teenager after all, is a society that let this happen to them.