Filipino youth use social media for reproductive health info, says group

AN ADVOCACY GROUP on Monday said that Filipino youth rely on social media to learn more about their reproductive health and rights amid rising abortion cases in the Philippines.

“There’s an improvement when it comes to access to information, but again, there are still platforms or accounts that disseminate misinformation about abortion.” Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN) Steering Committee Member Jihan A. Jacob told ����ý in an interview.

“So, it’s either you can use that as a tool for good to be able to share accurate information, or as a tool to perpetrate myths and misconceptions around abortion,” she added.

Under Articles 256 to 259 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), individuals who perform, facilitate, or are otherwise involved in abortion, whether intentional or unintentional, are subject to penalties.

Given the restrictive laws in the country, Ms. Jacob said that a lot of young Filipinos use social media to access not just information about reproductive health but also medical abortion medicine.

“We’ve seen how there are many platforms online that would offer access to these drugs,” she said on the mifepristone and misoprostol drugs recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for medical abortion. “They would either receive fake drugs or a wrong regimen, and that makes it more dangerous.”

“We always give the caveat that, given the legal framework, the safety and the efficacy of this medical abortion drugs are not guaranteed,” she added.

Citing the Guttmacher Institute, PINSAN said abortion cases in the Philippines between 2015 and 2019 have increased by 51%.

The University of the Philippines Population Institute (UPPI) estimated that about 1.2 million induced abortions occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms. Jacob added that the lack of access to formal reproductive health education also led to children resorting to social media.

“Now with social media, the amount of misinformation and disinformation on social media is not being properly fact-checked through formal education,” she said. “If we can provide education and accurate science-based information to them, then we can increase the literacy of our adolescents.”

The Department of Education (DepEd) has issued Order 25 adopting a policy on the implementation of Reproductive Health Education (RHE) for adolescent learners in basic education to ensure accessible, age- and developmentally appropriate lessons for young Filipinos.

Some of the topics included in RHE are women’s and children’s rights, teen pregnancy, and protection against sexual abuse.

“It would help address the unintended pregnancies,” Ms. Jacob said, noting that around half of pregnancies that result in abortion are due to unintended pregnancies.

“So, if you’re able to address that, the education part, then you’ll be able to have an impact on the number of abortions,” she added. — Almira Louise S. Martinez