This monthly column is (primarily) focused on women's health issues and concerns, but our resident lesbian doc Inna can accommodate questions about anything womyn under the sun.  Please send your questions and requests for featured topics to indigophilippines@yahoo.com.

Looking Beyond Reproductive Health: 

An Issue for Women
by Gina S. Itchon MD, Indigo Corewomyn
July 2002

It has always been a constant source of annoyance for me, that we often read and hear women’s health discussed in the context of reproductive health. Of course, women’s reproductive health deserves all the attention it is getting, especially with increasing rates of breast, uterine, and cervical cancers in the country, which are now some of the top causes of mortality and morbidity for Filipinas. And thanks to the lack-luster approach of the Department of Health to maternal health, we still have many women who die from childbirth and do not have access to prenatal care. Certainly, women’s reproductive health is a vital issue in the planning and provision of health services.

However, we need to look beyond the concept that our health as women matters only because of our capacity to reproduce. That, of course, is totally unfair and discriminates against women who, by choice or circumstance, decide not to have children. It will certainly discriminate against us lesbians, because many of us decide not to ‘use’ our reproductive capability to have children. This undue focus on reproductive health is in itself discriminatory already. It equates our health to the health of our ‘tubes’, so to speak, and relegates to minor importance all other health issues. The world in general has been so concerned with what happens to our breasts, ovaries, and uteri, and about whether we receive enough care before, during and after we give birth, that it has totally forgotten that women are so much more than reproductive organs. The sad thing is, many women are also beginning to think that reproductive health is the only kind of health care they need and are entitled to.

• We are certainly aware of the danger signs of breast cancer and that many Filipinas die of hemorrhage from childbirth especially in the rural areas. But how well-known are the following facts?

• Lung cancer is on the rise even among women, primarily because of the rising incidence of smoking;

• Women who smoke and at the same time use birth control pills are at an increased risk of developing heart disease and strokes;

• Incidence of malnutrition is higher among female children of school age compared to males, because when food is scarce in a household, males are fed first;

• 7 out of 10 diabetic patients are females. Diabetes is generally more common in females;

• In the US and other developed countries, more money is spent for research on breast implants than on research for breast cancer.

It is time to broaden our horizons, to look beyond reproductive health as the only aspect of health that matters to women. Let us start to pay attention to other aspects of our health, to look beyond our tubes, to what makes us tick, to look at our hearts and minds, literally. We are so much more than our reproductive organs and our capacity to reproduce. We are women, the potent force in society.

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Lesbians are Women too, Stupid!

The Author
Doc Inna is an out and proud practicing lesbian doctor (yes, practicing lesbian, and practicing doctor!) who is also an assistant professor at a medical school somewhere in the Southern part of the country.  Aside from her medical degree, she also has post-graduate degrees in Medical Science and Public Health.