Abortion in the Philippines
Abortion in the Philippines is illegal. Abortion. The constitutional provision that "[The State] shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception" was crafted by the Constitutional Commission which drafted the charter with the intention of providing for constitutional protection of the abortion ban, although the enactment of a more definitive provision sanctioning the ban was not successful. The provision is enumerated among several state policies, which are generally regarded in law as unenforceable in the absence of implementing legislation. The 1987 Constitution also contains several other provisions enumerating  various state policies. Whether these provisions may, by themselves, be the source of enforceable rights without implementing legislation has been the subject of considerable debate in the legal sphere and within the Supreme Court. An analysis by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs concluded that although the Revised Penal Code does not list specific exceptions to the general prohibition on abortion, under the general criminal law principles of necessity as set forth in article 11(4) of the Code, an abortion may be legally performed to save the pregnant woman's life. Abortion incidence . A 1997 study estimated that, despite legal restrictions, in 1994 there were 400,000 abortions performed illegally in the Philippines and 80,000 hospitalizations of women for abortion-related complications; It was reported in 2005 that official estimates then ranged from 400,000 to 500,000 and rising, and that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate was 800,000. Seventy percent of unwanted pregnancies in the Philippines end in abortion, according to the WHO. , approximately four in five abortions in the Philippines were for economic reasons, often where a woman already has several children and cannot care for another. While some doctors secretly perform  abortions in clinics, the 2,000 to 5,000 peso (US$37 to US$93) fee was too high for many Filipinos, so they instead buy abortifacients on the black market, e.g. from vendors near churches, sari-sari stores and bakeries. , two-thirds of Filipino women who had abortions attempted to self-induce or seek solutions from those who practice folk medicine. , one hundred thousand people ended up in the hospital every year due to unsafe abortions, according to the Department of Health, and 12% of all maternal deaths in 1994 were due to unsafe abortion. Some hospitals have refused to treat  complications of unsafe abortion, or operate without anesthesia, as punishment for the patients. In 2000, the Department of Health expanded a 1998 policy called "Prevention and Management of Abortion and Its Complications" (PMAC) aimed at addressing the complications of unsafe abortion to improve availability of quality of humane post-abortion care services by competent, compassionale, objective and non-judgmental service providers in well-equipped institutions complemented by a supportive environment. In 2018, a new governmental policy strengthening the national framework for postabortion care clarified legal and ethical duties of health service providers and provided formal avenues for redress against abuse