A Well-Timed Pregnancy

31 Mar A Well-Timed Pregnancy

Let’s say you are a college freshman. In your desire to earn your degree faster, you’ve taken as many units as you can for the incoming semester. You come from a middle-class family. You have 3 other siblings whose food, shelter, clothing and education your parents are providing for. In order to ease their financial burden, you’ve made the decision to take on a part-time job as well.

If you were to get pregnant at this moment, your pregnancy will compromise not just you and your immediate future, but also your entire family’s future.

Your parents who are already struggling to make ends meet have to take on additional responsibilities to compensate for your pregnancy and future child. Your family’s resources may be funneled from providing your siblings more tools to excel in school and into financial preparations for your pregnancy.

Let’s compare this situation with a well-timed pregnancy.

Imagine you’re in your mid-twenties and economically independent from your parents. You work for a company that provides a steady salary and maternity benefits.

Which situation would you rather have?

In other countries, a woman has the freedom to choose the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. Unfortunately, in the Philippines where the option to end a pregnancy is not available, an unintended or an unwanted pregnancy could automatically mean a life of economic hardship for you and your family. It also means that your child will be born under unfavorable circumstances.

The policy brief, “Access to Safe and Legal Abortion and Post-Abortion Care Can Save Filipino Women’s Lives” provides some context on the issue of abortion.

The document mentions that, “The women who induce abortion are similar to the majority of the Filipino women—poor, Roman Catholic, married, with at least three children, and have at least a high school education.”

The document enumerates the top five reasons women wish to end a pregnancy:

1. Among those surveyed, 75% wish to end a pregnancy do so because they simply can’t afford the cost of raising a child or an additional child.
2. Some women feel that the timing is wrong, since they already have enough children or the pregnancy has come too soon after their last birth.
3. Some women have health concerns; meaning that a pregnancy would have endangered their health.
4. One in three women believe that their pregnancy was not supported by their partner or their family.
5. Among those surveyed, 13% wanted to end a pregnancy because it was a result of forced sex.

Among the five reasons mentioned above, four have to do with the timing of the pregnancy. Timing is an overlooked aspect on the discourse surrounding pregnancy and a woman’s right to end it. The ideal situation for a birth is during a time when a mother, along with her support system, is financially and psychologically ready to raise a child.

Science Daily published an article regarding a UK study on the effect of pregnancy planning and fertility treatment on cognitive outcomes in children at ages 3 and 5.

According to the study, “children born after unplanned pregnancies tend to have a more limited vocabulary and poorer non-verbal and spatial abilities.” It was also mentioned that these negative consequences come as a direct result of disadvantaged circumstances.

The person most affected by the timing of a pregnancy is a woman, therefore the choice to continue or end a pregnancy should be available to a woman. Social or legal obstacles that prevent her from making this choice for herself is a clear violation of her freedom and autonomy.

For more resources on abortion please view EnGendeRights’ Policy Briefs and Fact Sheets.

Sources:
ScienceDaily. (2011, July). “Children born after unplanned pregnancy are slower to develop, UK study finds.” Retrieved on: March 6, 2017.
Padilla, C. R. (2016, December). “Access to Safe and Legal Abortion and Post-Abortion Care Can Save Filipino Women’s Lives.” Retrieved on: March 30, 2017.