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The Philippines
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Philippine bill aims to boost contraceptive access to tackle teen pregnancy ‘emergency’

  • If the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill is passed, access to sexual and reproductive health services, like contraception, would increase
  • Early pregnancy is rife in the mainly Catholic nation, with 10-year-olds affected too, leading to ripple effects like poverty, unemployment, depression

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Activists say the new bill will “save young girls from the clutches of maternal death”. Photo: Shutterstock
Thomson Reuters Foundation
A new bill that could be a game-changer in the battle against teen pregnancies in the Philippines is inching through Congress, with activists hoping it could galvanise a wider campaign to tackle this “national social emergency”.
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The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, which was passed by the House in September and has now moved to the Senate, aims to expand access to sexual and reproductive health services, like contraception, in the mainly Catholic country where early pregnancies, even among girls as young as 10, are rife and where the age of consent was only raised from 12 to 16 last year.

The Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development, one of the groups campaigning for the bill, said it was only two steps away from a vote in the Senate.

A young couple in the Philippines look at their newborn baby. Photo: Shutterstock
A young couple in the Philippines look at their newborn baby. Photo: Shutterstock

“We are hopeful that the senators will find the time to deliberate on the measure and see not only the bill’s merit … but also its urgency,” Rom Dongeto, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

“This is a critical issue that Filipinos deeply care about, and expressing unified support will emphasise its significance and urge swift action for its passage,” he said.

If the bill is passed into law, it would end the contradiction inherent in the fact that the legal age of consent for sexual relations is 16, but written parental consent is needed for children aged under 18 to access contraceptives.

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This discordance, a lack of sufficient information on sexual and reproductive health, and the silencing effect of social stigma have fused to foster high rates of teenage pregnancies, health experts say.

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