Figures of cherubim or ‘little angels’ in cemeteries are often used to signify the graves of infants or children.
A cherubim, often depicted as childlike winged angel, symbolizes the soul’s journey to heaven or represents a child who has died. A cherubim can also represent a soul in spiritual transition and innocence.
The cherubs’ childlike faces symbolize a shift in the perception of death, transforming it from a biological endpoint (represented by skulls) to a step in the journey toward another life.
Some cemeteries, such as the Manila South Cemetery, have designated sections for the remains of unborn children lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion.
Abortion is the willful killing of the fetus in the uterus, or the violent expulsion thereof from the maternal womb, which results in the death of the fetus.
Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. The 1987 Philippine Constitution (Art II, Sec 12) states that the state ‘shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.’ This provision is interpreted as a constitutional ban on abortion.
Under Article 256 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), there are three ways by which abortion is committed: (1) by using violence upon the person of the pregnant woman; (2) by acting, but without using violence, without the consent of the woman (e.g., by administering drugs or beverages upon her without her consent); and (3) by acting (by administering drugs or beverages) with the consent of the pregnant woman.
The Supreme Court has not decriminalized abortion and has consistently upheld its illegality under Philippine law.
In the 1961 case of Geluz v. Court of Appeals (GR L-16439 July 20, 1961), the Supreme Court ruled that a husband could not recover damages for his wife’s abortion because the unborn fetus lacks legal personality and therefore has no right to claim damages.
Three years ago, the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (No. 19-1392, June 24, 2022) reversing the doctrine in the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade (410 US 113).
I first encountered Roe vs Wade in my constitutional and criminal law classes at the UP College of Law in the early 1990s.
The US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the US constitution generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion.
The case noted that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy. A state law that broadly prohibits abortion without respect to the stage of pregnancy or other interests violates that right.
The case discussed abortion rights in three periods of the pregnancy.
In the first trimester, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision.
In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health.
In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of ‘viability,’ a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
In the consolidated case of Imbong v. Ochoa (GR 204819, April 8, 2014), the Supreme Court ruled that the Reproductive Health Act of 2012/RA 10354 (RH Law) actually proscribes abortion, that it recognizes that the fertilized ovum already has life and that the State has a bounden duty to protect it.
The Court said that life begins at fertilization, not at implantation.
When a fertilized ovum is implanted in the uterine wall, its viability is sustained but that instance of implantation is not the point of beginning of life. It started earlier.
The Court found that the RH Law itself clearly mandates that protection be afforded from the moment of fertilization. It is replete with provisions to protect the fertilized ovum and that it should be afforded safe travel to the uterus for implantation.
Women’s rights advocates fought for the decriminalization of abortion arguing that women in the Philippines are forced to undergo clandestine and unsafe conditions to get an abortion, putting themselves at serious risk.
Some 1.1 million induced abortions occur in the country annually, while some 1,000 Filipino women die each year from post-abortion complications.
SC Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said in the Imbong case that unwanted pregnancies may be the result of lack of knowledge of the consequences of the sexual act, or it could be due to the lack of information and access to safe and effective reproductive technologies.
Leonen said: ‘A law that mandates informed choice and proper access for reproductive health technologies should not be presumed to be a threat to the right to life. It is an affirmative guarantee to assure the protection of human rights.’