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Cross or a Condom

Young women in the breastfeeding room after giving birth at Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, where 20 percent of babies in congested Metro Manila are born. It is often called a baby factory with a production average of 88 live births daily since 2003.

Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is one of the fastest growing cities on earth and evidence of population pressure is everywhere. Tens of millions of people in the Philippines live in poverty and the country also has one of the highest birth rates in Asia. In this devoutly Catholic country there are moves to introduce a reproductive health bill to provide free contraception. The Church, fearing a breakdown in family values, is fiercely resisting the move, and blames the widespread poverty on bad government rather than population growth.