Manila women want law on family planning revoked

By Manny Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) - Women from three slum communities in Manila asked the appeals court on Wednesday to allow them access to contraceptives in public clinics, revoking a local law that bans condoms and pills.

In 2000, the capital's mayor issued an order stopping doctors, nurses and other health workers from promoting and distributing contraceptives, instructing them to teach only the natural method of family planning.

"We want to decide for ourselves how many children we would have, and not the government to tell us how to do it," Lourdes Osil, a mother of six, told reporters after her lawyers asked the court to declare the seven-year-old local law unconstitutional.

"We were denied not only access to contraceptives, but even our rights guaranteed in the constitution to make a free choice were also ignored and violated."

Home to an estimated 89 million people, the largely Catholic Philippines has one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia with around 2 million babies born every year.

Under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a devout Catholic who relies on the support of politically powerful bishops, the central government promotes natural family planning methods such as abstinence when the woman is ovulating.

Emma Monzaga, one of the petitioners, said she was getting injections once every three months to prevent her from becoming pregnant, but was told on her third visit to a public clinic that the treatment was no longer available.

"I was asked to go somewhere else to get the shots because the city hall has stopped funding the family planning program," Monzaga said, adding her family could not afford to spend extra for contraceptives.