PHILIPPINES: Condom prescription rules raise concerns

IRIN – Thursday, 13 April, 2011

MANILA, 13 April 2011 (IRIN) – The growing number of villages seeking to outlaw the sale of condoms, birth control pills and other artificial forms of contraception without a prescription is worrying government officials and women’s rights groups.

Seven villages in Bataan, a low- to middle-income province west of the Philippine capital of Manila, are lobbying to enact a local ordinance to ban condoms and other forms of modern contraception without a prescription.

The ban comes on the heels of a similar ordinance passed in January 2011 in Ayala Alabang, one of the most affluent areas in the country.

“We feared that [the] Alabang [ordinance] would set a precedent and would only be the beginning. Alabang was never just a local issue, but one of national importance,” Elizabeth Angsioco, head of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines, told IRIN. . .

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