Abortion and sin

Wow, a nice, non-controversial title, huh?

So I'm working my way through the interviews (and dang did I take a lot of interviews!) annotating them and transcribing bits I want to quote, and I just got to a really interesting conversation I had almost forgotten about.  My interviewing techniques completely broke down - yes, I am asking yes and no questions here, and yes, that's awful.  what can I say.  Actually, I was not only asking poor interview questions, I was also asking really insensitive ones - I had several times been told not to ask about abortion at all, because the taboo on talking about it was too strong, and when I asked about it in the past I had, indeed, had a few people just shut down on me.  So it was wise advice I received, but I think I was also wise to disregard it sometimes.

Anyway, I am not presenting this as an example of camila being an awesome interviewer. But I thought despite my incompetence, the result was interesting  With hemming, hawing, and some translating from tagalog cut out, it looks like this:

Me: What kinds of questions do you get the most?
Gladys (teenaged RH activist/youth educator/general badass): Mostly girls asking about missed periods and pregnancy.
Me: What information do you have for them?
Gladys: We can give them counseling [talks a bit about early-pregnancy counseling]
Me, diving headfirst into cultural insensitivity: Do they ever ask about abortions?
Gladys: Sometimes we get girls who inquire about abortions, but then they decide to continue the pregnancy.
Me, surprised that she answered calmly, and that they talked about it at all: We talked earlier about the taboo on talking about sex - are the youths who are open to talking about contraceptive use generally open to talking about abortion, too?
Gladys: Yes.
Me (continuing to be surprised): Are they open to the idea of actually having abortions?
A pause.
Gladys: When the contraception fails, they are open to do abortions.
A pause.
 Gladys: There are young pregnant women who are open to having abortions when they get pregnant, but as long as their parents don't know they are pregnant. But that's only 10%.  For the young pregnant women whose parents know about her pregnancy, she'll still continue the pregnancy.
Me: Are the parents opposed to abortion?
Gladys, looking at me like I'm a complete idiot: Yes, of course. They believe that abortion is a sin.  And that it may cause harm to the child-bearer.
Me: And the young people don't believe this?
Gladys: They have the same beliefs.  They both think that abortion is a sin.  It's still quite a sin to them.Me: Can - can you explain a little more?  They agree that abortion is a sin, and have the abortions anyway?
Gladys:  Sort of.  They agree with their parents on abortion, that abortion is a sin
Me: But...
Gladys: If the knowledge about pregnancy - if only the boyfriend and the girl knows about the pregnancy, then they push for an abortion.   They may go for an abortion.  The barrier is - I mean, the thing that stops them from getting an abortion - is the parent's knowledge.
Me: so in the percentage where the parents don't know, and they do have an abortion, do they still believe it's a sin? Or is it - I mean, is it only a sin if their parents know?
Gladys: They think it is still a sin, but that they lack a choice.  They still consider it as a sin, but they still prefer an abortion.  And if the parents know about the pregnancy and about the abortion, well... if the parents will know that she had an abortion, she's dead.


So - the way I parsed this conversation - everybody agrees that abortion is a sin, but it's not actually moral objections to abortion that cause teenagers with unwanted pregnancies to continue their pregnancies.  It's not even the high risks involved in cheap, illegal abortions. It's their parents' moral objections - or more specifically, the punishment (and "she's dead" might sound like an exaggeration, but by this point in my trip, I made no such assumptions) that their parents would enact if they knew about the sin.

Either way, Gladys describes teens who feel like they have no choice.  If the parents don't know, then they have to abort; and if their parents do know, then they have to continue (and get married, in many communities).

And look back at the start of the conversation - these young people, if they are lucky enough to have an RH advocacy group active in their area, only seek information AFTER they think they might be pregnant.

Sin?  The idea of sin's not preventing abortions, or causing them.  It's knowledge that's determining these kids' actions - their own knowledge about contraception, and their parents' knowledge about their actions. 

Then again, the original sin was the pursuit of knowledge, so maybe I'm reading it all backwards...

On governance and weather patterns

(most fascinating post title EVER huh?  two really, really sexy topics, i know).

So the pace of my research has slowed down a bit now that I'm traveling all around - I mean, I still have days where I'll interview 6 activists in a day, but they're far rarer than they were in Manila, and every now and again i wind up not interviewing any - I go to offices, chat with staff or directors, send emails and make calls, but end up at the end of the day with no new interviews recorded.  I have to remind myself, after the breakneck pace of Manila, that it's okay to have days like that, as long as they aren't ALL like that.  And they aren't, of course - I got another dozen interviews in the last week or so.

One thing that really came through in my interviews in the South was the importance of local governments.  Of course, activists talked about this in Manila, too, but visiting Davao kind of drives it home.  Davao is a big, progressive city in the south-east corner of Mindanao, which prides itself (seriously, every taxi driver was boasting) on being the cleanest, safest city in the Philippines... or so they claim.  Fascinatingly, smoking is pretty much banned there - not allowed in ANY public spaces, with fierce fines if a cop catches you, and huge billboards everywhere reminding you that it's "BECAUSE WE CARE" (their caps).  If this doesn't sound that fascinating to you, then pay a visit to Manila... because EVERYBODY smokes EVERYWHERE.  Except on the light rail, I think.  But everywhere else!

Anyway, Davao's father-and-daughter mayoral team (they just switch place between mayor and vice mayor.  It's weird.  Clan politics are weird.  Wow, that was a nuanced and culturally sensitive comment, huh?) are very strong supporters of women's issues, and a few years back Davao passed a Women Development Code.  It mandated the creation of a Integrated Gender and Development Office (still just a department now, but they're working on it) and also:
- Banned beauty pageants that involved any skimpy outfits, nudity or degrading acts
- Banned billboards degrading to women
- Mandated that all city employees be trained in gender sensitivity
- Required that all business provide reproductive health services to employees or risk losing their business license
- Mandated maternity leave of 6 months for women working for any employer
- Set up tax benefits for companies that provide child care
- Defines the feminist principles officials and police should follow when helping battered women.  (First line: "Feminists maintain that violence and abuse are never appropriate in an intimate relationship.")
- and it keeps going!  special sections for indigenous women and women with disabilities, recognition of the rights of lesbians, ways to improve access to education for older women, etc, etc.  I was reading this thing and my jaw literally dropped and I said, "and this PASSED!?"  It reads like a (second-wave?) feminist's pipedream.   But it passed - and it appears, in many ways, to be fulfilling its stated goals.

I seriously could not believe that they managed to ban bikini contests, though.  Can you imagine trying that back home?  The libertarians would all have heart attacks.

Anyway, everybody I interviewed mentioned the fact that the local government provided a lot of support, including financially, to woman's organizations and woman's issues - and that if the smaller units of government (barangays) were resistant to, say, dedicating money for a Women and Children's Protection Desk (where battered wives and abused children can seek help at any time), the mayor's office will put pressure on them to comply with the law.  In fact, the mayors here appear to be kind of despotic - rule with an iron fist and all - but they're despotic in favor of women, which frankly is a phrase I never expected to write.

Despotism aside, is it encouraging or discouraging that local governments can make so much of a difference?   Little of both... it means that even if the national government doesn't pass, say, a reproductive health bill, communities can elect leaders who care about the issue and will make the absence of the national bill downright irrelevant.  But on the other hand, it means that even if the nation has passed, say, a bill banning VAW (which they did - Republic Act 9262, 2004) the enforcement rests squarely on the local level, and a mayor or barangay captain who doesnt' care can make the presence of a national bill... downright irrelevant.

On the travel note, I kind of like the rainy season!  Okay, there's one thing I don't like: My clothes NEVER DRY.  NEVER.  OMG.  So that's annoying.

But the thunderstorms are so dramatic!  And as long as I can find shelter, so much fun to watch!  And they cool down the temperature, and add variety, and chase away the crowds.  Friends, the rainy season is sweet!

And even cloudy days can be absolutely beautiful... for instance, when we visited Lake Cebu, it was a cloudy, rainy day - and I got mud all over myself to prove it, at one point - but it was also gorgeous.  Amazingly gorgeous.

interviews - no, really, i'm actually going to talk about them this time

Okay, so I've posted about eating dog meat and drinking cat poo, visiting rice terraces and touring slums, spraining my ankle and visiting markets, and at this point you may be wondering, "but Camila, are you actually doing any research?"

To which the answer is - hi there grant sponsors - YES!  I have so far interviewed over 35 activists.  I think the exact number is 38 or something.  And I have scheduled for the rest of my time here almost 30 more, with lots more possibilities

That is... that is many, many interviews.  My soul is quivering at the thought of having to code and transcribe them, let alone extract a single story out of them.  (if I have grant money left over, can i hire a research assistant??? oh well, at least I won't be bored for the rest of my summer...)

So, in case you were wondering what exactly these interviews are like (okay, I realized probably nobody cares enough about my research to actual sit around going, "golly gee, i wonder what the experience of taking interviews is like for camila?" but you're going to hear about it anyway, 'cuz i'm the one writing this here blog) here are a few snapshots from interviews I took in Manila.  I'm not using any real names here because I'm going to wait until I have really carefully thought about what I write when I use real names, and this is bloggishly off-the-cuff.  Also, the quotes here are from my notes, not from my 50+ hours of recordings, and we all know what my handwriting is like, so.  Yes.  No real names and I claim some wiggle-room rights here on the quotes.  illustrative purposes only - kthnxbai!

Sitting in the back room of one of the party-list's many offices, with galvanized steel overhead and, thanks to the rain, the occasional cool breeze coming in through the gaps in the wall, I listen to a campaign manager describe the response of Filipino men to the women's partylist.  We are drinking rice coffee, despite the heat, and she doesn't appear to be sweating, while I am finding it hard to breath in the absence of air conditioning.  She says something in Tagalog that I hope I'll be able to transcribe, and smiles.  "Strong woman," she says.  "That's what it means.  They would say that to us as we campaigned in the street - 'Ay, strong women!  Strong!'  And fifty percent of our votes come from men, did you know that?"  I didn't.  Inside the house, young party-list members are on netbooks, shopping and playing games.  I bring up the NPA, with which this group is idealogically aligned, although they distance themselves politically, and the campaign manager leans forward.  "I don't agree with their methods.  I don't.  But I cannot help but sympathize with their cause, you know?"

On the 30th floor of a gleaming glass tower, behind three layers of security, riding elevators with well-dressed European development officers, I finally reach the offices of the UN-FPA.  A young woman beams as she meets me, and I'm infinitely relieved to find that she's wearing jeans and a sweatshirt instead of a suit.  We sit an empty conference room and laugh as she explains that her offices are with the IT staff, in a corner of ther frigid server room, and we get serious as she describes her first time working with young positives - youths living with HIV.  I ask about what it was like transitioning from a distant town in the provinces to life in the big city, and she shakes her head as words fail her.  She describes an awakening gender consciousness, the struggles of being by far the youngest person in her office, and how she travels back to her home community to provide leadership training to youth so that they, too, can have the chance to make decisions about their own futures.

In the second floor of a community health clinic in an "informal settlement," the PC term for a squatter community, I am listening to two young women - younger than me - describe what it's like to pass out condoms to the youths in their community.   How their parents responded, how the other youths laugh and tease them, how they're grateful.  We fan ourselves with woven palm-fronds and scrap paper and lean forward in our plastic seats as they talk to me, helping each other with their English.  They plan and run EDs, educational discussions that cover issues of STIs, early pregnancy, kinds of contraception, abortion, and other RH issues.  I ask what they think of abortion, and they say it is a mortal sin.  I ask what they think of contraception, and they say the youths need it - since they're having sex anyway, and they might as well be protected.  I ask, finally, why they have chosen to dedicate so much time and energy to this particular issue - in a slum, with few jobs, incredible poverty, sanitation issues, so many things to worry about, why reproductive health?  They look at me for a few seconds, seeming surprised by the question, and then one says matter-of-factly, "Women are dying from having children.  All the time, women are dying.  What we do saves lives."  And I have no words.

On the top floor of an upscale mall, in a ritzy coffee shop, N. drinks pink guava juice and talks cyber-activism, political processes, mass movements and the line between activism and advocacy.  She came straight from her job in Congress, and is beautifully dressed.  She smiles and laughs often, even as she discusses government corruption and youth disengagement.  "I'm not an angry person," she says.  "I'm a positive person.  I want to build consensus."  I ask about women's rights issues, and she pauses, and her smile fades.  "In my advocacy, I actually don't really focus on women's rights issues.  Things like violence against women just... they're just too close to home."  There is a silence.

In another fancy mall, I sit down with K. over fancy pastries and breads, and she points at the bean-paste loaf I'm about to bite into.  "The cost of that bun could buy dinner for two people, you know," she says, and I pause.  She picks up her own snack and takes a bite, and we start to talk about her past, and what inspired her to abandon the possibility of high-paying jobs to work as a counselor for victims of violence against women, and why she soon might be leaving her activist position for a job with a paycheck.  She says there is no hope of justice for women who have been victims of domestic violence - not in the Philippines and not right now.  There are laws, she says, but laws are just paper, and in reality, there is no hope of justice.  "So what do you say to the women who come to you?" I ask, bewildered by the depth of her despair.  "I say, you have a choice: you can take this to the court, or not.  If you file a case, at least you are fighting.  Win or lose, I tell them, you can say that you fought for your rights."

On the fourth story of a colorful building way up in the north of Metro Manila, I eat rice cakes and listen to NGO employees plan a project to attract the out-of-school youth to the new SRH-education group they're starting.  They discuss rock concerts and outreach programs, movie nights, guitar lessons.  They discuss the problems of petty crime and early pregnancy, the sheer boredom of youths with nothing to do.  I ask about how many young people in the community are out-of-school youths - there's a tagalog word for them, which means vagrant - and they look at each other, raising eyebrows, shaking heads.  "Way, way too many," they say.

In a hip cafe in Baguio, over vegetarian meals, J. and I discuss her work as an activist, advocate and journalist.  She works with an anti-trafficking group that fights various forms of violence against women, and when I ask about motivations for becoming an activist, she pauses only briefly.  Her father beat her mother, and sexually harrassed J. herself.  Her older half-brother raped his own children, and before she joined this group, she said, her sympathies were with her brother - not the children.  She describes the camp that taught her that domestic and sexual violence isn't normal or okay, and is, in fact, illegal - and there are tears in her eyes as she describes filing a case against her father and testifying against her brother in court, and as she recalls many members of her family turning against her.  But when she saw her half-brother jailed for life, she says, "I knew that this was justice."

This is taking way too long - there's too much to write about - I took so many interviews, and I think they're all fascinating!  In her UP office a polisci professor explains to me the complex dynamics between the different members of the leftist movement.  In a garage office, young activists with the youth movement explain why they stopped studying in order to fight for the right of others to study.  While one talks, the others take smoking breaks.  In the familiar-feeling setting of a small, private, religious college, a young woman from a wealthy background talks about a documentary that she watched as a teenager and that turned from her from a life of complacency to one of advocacy.  (Documentary-makers of the world, take heart!)  In a nice restaurant, I convince three community organizers - who work full-time and for free - to let me buy them dinner, and the three of them split one entree as they explain the challenges facing poor Filipinas.  In what must be the world's fanciest Pizza Hut, C. explains her work educating young people on gender issues and counseling survivors of sex trafficking.  After the interview, I ask her boyfriend, who has been playing with his iphone the whole time, if he, too, identifies as a feminist - and he gets a deer-in-the-headlights look, stutters, says, "I'm working on it."  Over hot chocolate and pancakes, A. explains that radical nuns brought her to the world of feminist theory.

The congresswoman fell just short in the elections - in her office, the boxes are already being packed.  While I wait for our appointment, a news crew comes in to shoot video of the moving-out process.  Halfway through the interview, she is pleased when I ask why she, personally, supports the reproductive health bill, and says, "you know, that's a question the bishops never ask.  They make many personal attacks, but don't ask personal questions."  At the end of the interview, I show her a letter to the editor I clipped the other day, a priest writing that condoms are "intrinsically evil" and encourage the people to become "pleasure-loving" instead of morally responsible.  She sighs as she reads, then throws up her hands and says, "Pleasure-loving!  How dare the people love pleasure!  There must be no pleasure, at all!" and I laugh, but she shakes her head in disgust.

I am talking to two advocates for legal rights of women, and ask how they got in this line of work.  One says, "I came from a very normal family, you know?" and explains how she started doing research here because she needed a job, and got inspired by the things she learned.  The other laughs and says, "well, I came from a family that was normal for me, but for me, normal included a lot of violence."  And she explains how her father beat her mother, and her brothers abused her, literally dragging her home from school when they caught her talking to boys, and how her battered mother cried and blamed the children, and how she later saw her mother attempt suicide in front of her.  And since we've been talking about "normal," I ask, "when did you realize that this level of violence wasn't normal?" and she said, "i went to girl scout camp, and we were all telling funny stories, and when I told mine - normal stories, you know, for me, 'and then he hit me here, and threw me there, and I FLEW across the room and hit the wall, you should have seen it' and they started crying!  And I was like, 'why are you crying?'"  And she laughs, and the other activist and I try to laugh, too, but don't quite manage it.

C's face is perfectly calm.  "I just wanted to understand - why is this happening to me?  What did I do to deserve this?  And when I joined this organization, I finally understood that it wasn't me.  It wasn't my fault.  It is the whole system."  She starts to smile, just a bit.  "And I was finally able to forgive him."

and friday's child has three very different appointments

Yesterday was an interesting day... started out in Towerville, a relocation community way up north that - while relatively developed, thanks in part to the efforts of Gawad Kalinga and Couples for Christ - has a serious lack of job opportunities in the area.  Many occupants still work their old jobs, an hour and a half away, and come to towerville on weekends to see their families.

Then traveled to Congress to interview (the sadly outgoing) Congresswoman Risa Hontiveros, who by rights should become the 12th partylist senator but no word yet on whether that's actually happening.  I have never before in my life wanted to enter politics, but this woman is pretty much my new hero.  So smart, strong, beautiful - and very, very quotable. you should have been there to see her, clutching her abdomen as she talked about the power of the womb, gesturing at her body as she said, "this is MY kingdom."  a-freaking-mazing.

and then to Cubao, where i hung out in cafes getting inspired for my previous post by being frustrated with my wireless (see #2), eating alone (see #4), and getting lost (see #1).  And then to a hip artist-run space tucked away amidst the malls - another nice thing about interviewing people, especially cool activist youths, they know all the sweet places to hang out - where I interviewed two activists and two of their friends over san migs (for them) and vodka and tonics (for me).  I'm afraid my questions and their answers got a little less intelligible by the end... but it was a very interesting interview, especially on the topic of LGBT issues (all four were gay) and abortion (each of them knew people who had either had or sought abortions... and two of them, the non-activist two, were strongly opposed.)  and then we hung out and talked into the morning.  did you have any idea of the level of discrimination cruise ship employees face when they're at sea and there's no regulatory oversight??

so three different faces of activism in Manila... on the streets, with the groups that build houses as well as those that pass out condoms - in the House, with one of the major supporters of the RH bill - and among the middle-class youth, with activists working to change perceptions and opinions of their peers.  lots to think about.

condoms

ay, so tired.  i've been leaving the condo around 7 and getting back at 10 these last few days... but today I got to sleep in and not leave 'til 9, but alas I didn't return until 12:30!

i should change my blogger clock to reflect real time...

ANYWAY today among other things I went to another urban poor community, this one way up north, and hung out in the home of Ate G - wonderful lady, works for an NGO i'm partnering with..  I wanted to ask where she (and her children and her niece) slept in that tiny room, but I thought it would be rude.. based on the pillows and blankets on a shelf, I could only assume on the floor... the concrete floor.  but perhaps there was a clever system set up and a more comfortable situation was hiding along a wall or something.  i wish i'd been brave enough to ask.

I was, however, brave enough to bring up the question of sex ed and contraceptive use with the kids i was hanging out with (the board of the youth club in the community - I call them kids but some were my age) and after a brief awkward silence we had a great discussion.  i asked about sex ed at their schools and whether talking about sex was still as taboo as it used to be, they asked if the US had an HIV problem and whether contraceptives were openly bought and used.  highlight: they were astonished to discover that at school i have access to free condoms (I didn't even mention that entire CITIES have access to free condoms).  and they bemoaned the high cost of condoms in their community (24 pesos a pack... that's less than fifty cents.  but fifty cents buys a lot more here and is a lot harder to come by in these communities.  but let's not talk about how much i had in my pocket at the time.  arrrrrrgh the money i don't know what to do about it).

anyway, they asked when I would come back to the Philippines (cue stuttering) and I said whenever it was, i would bring free American condoms as souvenirs from the states.  a boxful, I said, and H pointed at my shoulder bag and said, "no, bags full," and a boy  laughed, and said, "a truck!" and I said, "ok, ok, a plane!"   and then a kid in the corner said, "ah, but you'll need extra small sizes, for the filipinos..." and a kid in the other corner piped up in tagalog - not for me!  and we all laughed.  and I wondered about 24 pesos, and 13-year-old mothers, and the catholic church, and the HIV epidemic at call centers, and the fact that ate G won't sell condoms from her corner shop to anybody under 18 - but the kids here go to college at 15, if they go to college, and there are people getting married at 14. and then H was asking if she could come to my wedding, and we decided she could be my flowergirl, and then later we talked about throwing condoms around the streets of valenzuela city like a flowergirl throwing flowers and we all laughed.

what's the point of this story again?  oh yes.  condoms.  and how you, my american friends, should not take your free condoms (or your ability to afford to buy them) for granted.