PRESIDENTIAL aspirant Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. on Tuesday said he is firm on his pro-life stance, however, he would allow abortion on extreme cases or in instances where it is justified.

He made clear his stance in the one-on-one interview with Boy Abunda, during which he highlighted that his main concern would always be the safety and welfare of the affected women, some of whom are forced to seek help from illegal abortion clinics that put their lives in danger.

“We allow these critical cases to avail of that therapeutic abortion in those instances,” he stressed.

He then suggested that to avoid being abused and misused, the abortion law must be very specific on who could only avail of the procedure such as victims of rape, incest and others that may be spelled out and determined by lawmakers.

“I think in severe cases like you say the majority of cases are rape victims, I think they can show that they were raped and it’s not consensual sex that got them pregnant then they have this choice to abort or not,” Bongbong explained.

“The other is incest. And another is… if the mother is quite young and is not capable, emotionally or mentally not capable to take care of a child, maybe these are also the cases where we can see that abortion is justified,” he continued.

Bongbong emphasized that he wanted to save lives and as a public servant “what you are looking for is to avoid the tragedies that befall on the victims and their families”.

“Every single one of these statistics that you have read is tragedy in itself it affects the woman involved, it affects the entire family, generally, it affects them for the rest of their lives,”

Asked if his idea doesn’t clash with the position of the Catholic Church, which had stood firm against abortion, Bongbong said he “cannot argue with Theology but his concern is the large number of women who are hospitalized because of botched abortions.”

“I cannot argue with Theology all I argue is the statistics that you have given me 60,000 people, 60,000 are hospitalized because of botched abortion how many women die, that’s more,” he elaborated.

“If you are a public administrator the concern should be the high death rate and we can do in one fell swoop, we can avoid a large percentage of that,” he argued.

Bongbong said he had previously discussed abortion lengthily and thoroughly “with all the women in his life and the consensus is that the woman should decide because it is her body.”

When asked if he will initiate a law that will clarify his position on abortion, Bongbong said he will leave it to Congress “if that’s the will of the people.”