Some time back, a 25-year-old woman in Cologne, Germany, was drugged at a party and woke up on a park bench. Fearing that she had been raped and could get pregnant because of it, the woman consulted a doctor who sent her to two Catholic-run hospitals for a gynecological exam.
Perhaps the most underrated piece of news lately has been the rise in the number of maternal deaths—due to pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes—from an estimated 11 to 12 women dying EVERY DAY.
“Come and say hello to your grandson,” my daughter Jika beckoned to me the other day. She was caressing her distended belly now fully occupied by the six-month-old fetus growing snugly inside her. My wife put her hand on the spot where it moved beneath the skin, and asked me to feel it. “Xavier, this is your Lolo,” Jika said, as I rested the palm of my hand on what could be the unborn child’s head or elbow.
She is 42 years old, has had 15 pregnancies, two of them miscarriages and one induced abortion. She has 12 children who are alive, the eldest of them aged 26 and the youngest about four or five. She has three grandchildren, two of them single mothers. I met Yoling (not her real name) last week. [...]
THIS REFERS to two letters, published in the Inquirer, that may be confusing to readers. The first letter, from Raul Nidoy (“Breathtaking infatuation for RH bill,” Inquirer, 5/10/11), correctly referenced our systematic review, published in the Archives of Family Medicine, in which we concluded, “that good evidence exists to support the hypothesis that the effectiveness [...]
In his letter “Breathtaking infatuation for the RH Bill,” (Inquirer, 6/9/11), Raul Nidoy argues against the proposed law, falsely claiming that scientific evidence—including research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute—supports his position. What he actually does is distort the evidence to support his personal views. First, the Guttmacher Institute, a highly regarded independent research organization, has [...]
