High court stops DOH contraceptive implants

THE SUPREME Court has stopped the government from “procuring, selling, distributing, dispensing and administering, advertising and promoting” contraceptive implants, pending the high court’s final disposition of an appeal to permanently ban the product for its alleged “abortifacient” side effects.

In a resolution issued on June 17 but released only late Thursday, the high court’s Second Division granted the petition of the Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines Inc. (Alfi) for a temporary restrain-

ing order (TRO), barring the Department of Health (DOH) from acquiring and distributing contraceptive products Implanon and Implanon NXT to the public.

The implants, thin rods inserted under the skin, release hormones that prevent pregnancy for up to three years.

The TRO was “effective immediately and continuing until further orders of this court,” according to Second Division chair Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

The court also ordered respondents, including Health Secretary Janette Garin and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to comment on the petition within 10 days of notice.

The DOH has yet to file its legal comment on the petition.

Despite Implanon being approved by the FDA, Alfi claimed in its petition that the contraceptive implants were “known to have (an) abortifacient character.”

The TRO was the court’s initial action to the group’s petition for certiorari (or review of a lower court’s decision), on its contention that the use of Implanon was against the spirit of the reproductive health law.

Alfi’s petition had claimed that the health department’s manner of implementing the RH law had been “carried out without observance of due process and with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”

It asked the high court to issue a blanket order stopping the “procurement, sale, distribution, dispensation or administration of reproductive products and supplies, including contraceptive drugs and devices,” not just Implanon products, and “to cancel and withdraw ( their) registrations or recertifications,” saying the FDA had allowed the sale of such products “without holding any hearing or consultation.”

The Supreme Court issued the TRO a year after ruling that the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 was constitutional. The law became effective on Jan. 17, 2013.