Damned Catholics

[Fake Messiah]

Keep people uneducated, pregnant and poor. - motto of the Catholic Church.

Mothers at 14. The fierce debate over sex education in a deeply Catholic nation

Manila, Philippines — Clara says that at school, sex education “wasn’t taught in our class… we had different topics in science class.” Had she known more about reproductive health, Clara believes she would have avoided getting pregnant so young.

Clara is one of an increasing number of girls, between ages 10 and 14, who have become pregnant in their early adolescence. Stories like hers are at the heart of a fierce debate between lawmakers, health experts and church groups over what the future of sex education should look like in this deeply Catholic country.

CNN spoke with several Filipino girls and young women between the ages of 14 and 23, including mothers, who said they had either not had any sex education at school, or if they had, it lacked helpful information about consent or contraceptives. One of the women, Sam, 23, remembers learning about contraceptives in an 8th grade class, with a disclaimer not to use them.

Doctor Aileen Marie Rubio from Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila said most teens have “very limited knowledge on reproductive health, consent and what is considered abuse.” Rubio, who works with the hospital’s dedicated clinic for adolescent mums, said most teens didn’t know they could get pregnant if they had sex.

In the Philippines, child and teen pregnancies are amongst the highest in Asia.

Government bodies have long declared teen pregnancies a “national social emergency,” and in 2022 lawmakers filed the earliest draft of an Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill aimed at tackling the problem.

Three years on, the bill is still working its way through the legal process, after multiple amendments, and the most recent refile last month, following fierce opposition from conservative organizations and church groups.

The bill aims to standardize comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in schools and improve access to sexual health services. Currently, teens younger than 18 need parental consent to access contraceptives, with some exceptions.

But an earlier edition of the bill faced fierce opposition from church groups across the deeply Catholic state. The Catholic Church believes intercourse should only happen between married couples and teaches abstinence for all others. The church also disapproves of artificial contraception but permits natural methods of avoiding pregnancy within marriage. Abortion is illegal in all circumstances in the Philippines, including after rape or incest.

This opposition recently culminated in a combined lobbying effort by a coalition of at least eight evangelical and catholic organizations across the country, known as Project Dalisay.

The project’s convenor, Maria Lourdes Sereno, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the Philippines, tells CNN that CSE “intends to normalize sexual discussion, which is not part of Filipino culture.”

Their site pointed to 15 “harmful effects” of CSE, taken from resources by US-based anti-abortion organization Family Watch International (FWI). They included eroticizing condom use and promoting “gender confusion.”

Another US anti-abortion group, Human Life International (HLI)’s country head in the Philippines, Dr Rene Bullecer, has vocally backed Project Dalisay. HLI’s President, Father Shenan J. Boquet, also denounced the bill, saying that it posed “a significant threat to the societal, moral, and spiritual foundations of the Philippines,” in a lengthy statement to CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/31/asia/...s-intl-cmd