Abortion in the Philippines

The 50-year-old grandmother has lost count of the number of pregnancies she has terminated in this largely Roman Catholic country where abortion is illegal and strictly taboo, but where about half a million women end their pregnancies every year.

The backstreet abortions performed by healers like Minda may become more common as a United States government aid program plans to stop distributing contraceptives in the Philippines in 2008. This will leave birth control up to the government which under the influence of Catholic bishops advocates unreliable natural birth control methods rather than the pill and condoms.

Most women who seek abortions are like Remy, married with several children and too poor to afford another baby.

The petite 44-year old, who declined to give her last name, paid 150 pesos ($3) for a hilot, or traditional midwife like Minda, to crush her three-month old fetus using rough strokes and pincer-like grips on her belly.

The procedure, which can also involve pounding the lower abdomen to trigger a miscarriage, is called a massage.

"I felt guilty but I thought it was better than having another child that will only suffer because we have no food," she said in an interview in a slum on the outskirts of Manila.

Remy bled for a week after her session with the hilot, passing out with the pain. She refused to let her husband take her to the hospital because of the shame of what she had done and because they couldn't afford the medical bills.

"I just prayed to God and asked for forgiveness," she said.

Before her abortion, Remy had no access to artificial family planning. If she had, she says she wouldn't have become pregnant and resorted to the potentially life-threatening procedure.

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.

Poor people, who make up the majority of the population, rely largely on the U.S. government agency USAID, the main supplier of contraceptives in the country for the past 30 years.

But USAID has started phasing out supplies and plans to end the rest of its donation program in 2008. The agency has said its phase-out is in line with Manila's goal of self-reliance in family planning.