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Philippines President Benigno Aquino has signed into law a bill providing for free access to contraception and family planning.
Supporters say the law, which took 14 years to pass, will reduce poverty and maternal mortality in a country with the highest birth rate in the region.
The Roman Catholic Church repeatedly tried to block the bill.
The country’s Congress failed to pass the measure several times before giving it final approval on December 19th.
The law is due to take effect in mid-January, said presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte.
“The passage into law of the Responsible Parenthood Act closes a highly divisive chapter of our history – a chapter borne of the convictions of those who argued for, or against this act,” she said.
“At the same time, it opens the possibility of co-operation and reconciliation… engagement and dialogue characterized not by animosity, but by our collective desire to better the welfare of the Filipino people.”
Philippines President Benigno Aquino has signed into law a bill providing for free access to contraception and family planning
Even now the bill has become law, the Church and its political allies could still derail it.
Several bishops have already threatened to contest the bill’s legality in the Supreme Court.
More than 80% of the population in the Philippines is Catholic, and the Church has had the support of many politicians, media commentators, and businessmen.
Condoms are widely sold in the Philippines, but at a price that many people cannot afford.
Many maternity hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of births, and the UN appealed to the Philippines earlier this year to pass the family planning bill.
A government health survey in 2011 found that the maternal mortality rate had risen by 36% between 2006 and 2010.
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City officials in Ankang, China, have apologized to Feng Jianmei, the woman who was forced to have an abortion in the seventh month of pregnancy and suspended three people responsible, state media reports.
This came after photos showing a foetus and the mother, Feng Jianmei, shocked web users.
Feng Jianmei was made to undergo the procedure in Shaanxi province in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
Chinese law clearly prohibits abortions beyond six months.
The Ankang city government said it decided to suspend three officials in Zhenping county following initial investigations. It also urged the county government to conduct a thorough review of its family planning operations, said Xinhua news.
City officials in Ankang, China, have apologized to Feng Jianmei, the woman who was forced to have an abortion in the seventh month of pregnancy and suspended three people responsible
On Thursday night, the city officials apologized to Feng Jianmei, 27, and her family, the report said.
She was ”forced to terminate her pregnancy” at a hospital in Zhenping on 2 June, said Xinhua.
Officials in Zhenping county claimed she agreed to the abortion because she was not allowed to have a second child by law. She already has a daughter, born in 2007.
But activists said she was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child.
Rights groups say China’s one-child policy has meant women being coerced into abortions, which Beijing denies.
“Feng Jianmei’s story demonstrates how the One-Child Policy continues to sanction violence against women every day,” said Chai Ling of the US-based activist group All Girls Allowed.
The group says it spoke to Feng Jianmei and her husband Deng Jiyuan after the incident.
Deng Jiyuan said his wife had been forcibly taken to hospital and restrained before the procedure.
Media reports from China say Feng Jianmei has been traumatized by what has happened.
The photos sparked outrage among Internet users.
“This is what they say the Japanese devils and Nazis did. But it’s happening in reality and it is by no means the only case… They [the officials] should be executed,” one reader on news website netease.com said, according to the AFP news agency.
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Grisly photos of Chinese young woman Feng Jianmei as she was lying beside her baby which had been aborted by force in her seventh month of pregnancy have caused outrage in China.
Pictures purporting to show Feng Jianmei and her blood-covered baby have shocked anti-abortion groups in China – and fury is spreading around the world.
The mother told local media that she was forceably injected with a chemical to induce an abortion and her child was stillborn 36 hours later.
Because Feng Jianmei already had a child, she said, local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of $6,500.
She didn’t have the money, she said, so a team from the local family planning authority in Shannxi province came to collect her from her home and take her to hospital for the forced abortion.
Recounting the horror, Feng Jianmei said she told the family planning department she could not pay the fine because her mother-in-law needed money for cancer treatment.
It was then, she claimed, the authorities began their action against her.
Because Feng Jianmei already had a child, she said, local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of $6,500
Feng Jianmei said no less than 20 staff from the family planning department came to her home and placed her under arrest.
As they drove her to the hospital for a forced abortion, she began to resist – resulting in her being beaten.
At the hospital she was restrained and given an injection that would be lethal to the foetus. None of her family was allowed to be present during the traumatic time, she said.
Feng Jianmei said that her father-in-law heard about her being taken away but when he rushed to the hospital he was prevented from entering the obstetrics ward.
As outrage spread around anti-abortion groups in China, the authorities strenuously denied Feng Jianmei’s version of the events.
Li Yuongjou, deputy chief of Ankang’s family department, said the reality was that “Feng was not forced to abort”.
He said: “A lot of us tried for days to educate her. She agreed to the abortion herself.”
Li Yuongjou added that in China an abortion is allowed up to 28 weeks, saying: “It’s not illegal to conduct <<medium term>> induction of labor.”
And he admitted, however, that in his town the local target of enforcing the one-child policy had not been achieved for two consecutive years and the authorities were acting more strenuously to see that the target covering 95% of the population was reached.
Local media said it was most likely that Feng Jianmei had been injected with a chemical commonly known as Lifannuo – a powerful bactericide used in the late 1980s and early 1990s when China’s one-child policy was strongly pursued by authorities.
It is not known how Feng Jianmei managed to obtain photos of herself beside the aborted child, but anti-abortion groups said they were convinced the pictures were genuine.
A picture of a foetus whose mother Feng Jiamei was forced to have an abortion has shocked China web users.
Feng Jiamei, from Shaanxi province, was made to undergo the procedure in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
Feng Jiamei was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said.
Rights groups say China’s one-child policy has meant women being coerced into abortions, which Beijing denies.
“Feng Jianmei’s story demonstrates how the One-Child Policy continues to sanction violence against women every day,” said Chai Ling of the US-based activist group All Girls Allowed.
Feng Jiamei was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said
The group says it spoke to Feng Jiamei and her husband Deng Jiyuan after the incident.
Deng Jiyuan said his wife had been forcibly taken to hospital and restrained before the procedure.
Such allegations are nothing new in China, but what has made this one different is a widely circulated photo of the woman lying next to the baby’s corpse.
Media reports from China says Feng Jiamei has been traumatized by what has happened.
Unnamed local officials in Zhenping county – where the incident took place – denied forcing Feng Jiamei to have the abortion, local media reports say.
But a preliminary investigation by the Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission confirmed the forced abortion had taken place.
Without naming Feng Jiamei, it said in a statement that the woman had been seven months pregnant.
“Such practice has seriously violated the relevant policies set by national and provincial family planning commissions, which harmed the image of our family planning work, and caused extremely poor effects in society,” said the statement.
“Based on the findings, we have requested the local government to punish the relevant officers according to law,” it said.
Internet users expressed outrage.
“This is what they say the Japanese devils and Nazis did. But it’s happening in reality and it is by no means the only case… They [the officials] should be executed,” one reader on news website netease.com said, according to the AFP news agency.
Activist Chen Guangcheng, who was put under virtual house arrest for campaigning against forced abortions, fled China to the US last month.
