Pill power play

By Michael Tan - Philippine Daily Inquirer

I AM IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ATTENDING “WOMEN DELIVer,” a conference on women’s health.

At one of the sessions Dr. Nafis Sadik, former head of the United Nations Population Fund, told the story of the early days of family planning in her country, Pakistan. A physician, she had to attend to a couple at one of the family planning clinics, mainly dealing with an enraged husband who was protesting the insertion of an IUD (intra-uterine device) in his wife because his permission had not been obtained. He demanded that they take out the IUD. The staff obliged.

The story doesn’t end there. After the IUD had been removed, the husband ordered the medical staff: “Re-insert it.” He did want the IUD for his wife, but only with his permission.

The audience broke out laughing and so did Dr. Sadik but she did add, with a tinge of sadness in her voice that the story is funny only in the telling.

...

Women will sometimes find ways to overcome the odds. Some years back, I met a woman in the Malabon clinic of Likhaan, a non-government organization. She lived in Manila but at that time, there were no family planning services available in the city because Lito Atienza was mayor and had banned such services from government health centers. This woman supported her family through laundry and scavenging.

The woman knew she had to do something, and found out about the clinic in Malabon with family planning services available at little or no cost, depending on the woman’s financial status. But she had to save for the transportation to Malabon, and save she did (more or less P1 a day), for nearly two months. In Malabon, she chose to have an IUD. I presume her parish priest didn’t police his women parishioners on the family planning choices.

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