A reader speaks on the RH bill

In the interest of hearing as many sides and views as possible on the still controversial RH bill pending in Congress, today’s column gives way another reader, albeit one who has specifically requested for space to vent his view. We give the floor to Jomel Fuentes of Better Living, Parañaque City.

He says: “The real issue against the RH bill is that its advocates are either not aware/informed or take as valid [the following statements]:

“1. The RH bill allows contraceptives – the RH bill considers sex to be an instrument of pure pleasure (and not open to pro-creation), a selfish act that will lead men to treat women as mere sex objects.

“2. The RH bill’s ultimate objective is abortion – the RH bill does not consider a conceived fetus in a mother’s womb as a human being with a soul that endows a human being with intellect and will. Consequently, the RH bill likens human beings to animals.

“The use of contraception leads to: (a) infidelity between spouses, (b) men treating women as mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and (c) lowering of morality.

“Why? By breaking the natural connection between sex and procreation, women and especially men would focus on the pure pleasure of sex and disregard the twin-objective of sex: procreation.

Dramatic increase in illegitimacy

“Nobel prize-winning economist, George Akerlof, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, in a published article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1996, sought an answer to why the US experienced a dramatic increase of illegitimacy from 1965 to 1990, from 24 percent to 64 percent among African-Americans and from three percent to 18 percent among white Americans, contrary to what public health advocates’ prediction that contraception and abortion would reduce illegitimacy.

“He argued that the widespread use of contraception put the traditional women with an interest in marriage and children at a ‘competitive disadvantage’ in the relationship ‘market’ compared to liberal women who took a hedonistic approach to sex and relationships.

“The prevalent use of contraception also reduced the costs of sex for women and men in so far as the threat of childbearing was taken off the table, especially as abortion became widely available in the 1970s.

“Thus, traditional women could no longer hold the threat of pregnancy over their male partners, either to avoid sex or to elicit a promise in marriage in the event their partner made them pregnant. Liberal women no longer got worried about getting pregnant.

“Women felt free or obligated to have sex before marriage as evidenced by the surge in the percentage of girls 16 and under reporting sexual activity in 1970 and 1971 as contraception and abortion became common in the US.

“Traditional women ended up having sex and having children out of wedlock, while many permissive liberal women ended up having sex and using contraceptives or resorting to abortion so as to avoid childbearing. This explains in a large part why contraception resulted in an increase in both abortion and illegitimacy, according to Akerlof.

Poor suffers more

“A pair of statistical trends in the late 20th century shows that the poor suffer more. About five percent of college-educated women now have a child outside marriage – little change since the 1960s – but about 20 percent of women with a high school education or less now have a child outside marriage, up from seven percent in the 1960s.

“Akerlof also argued in an article published in The Economic Journal in 1998 that contraception resulted in the disappearance of marriage for men, evidenced by the drop of men aged 25 to 34 who were married in the US, from 66 percent in 1968 to 40 percent in 1993.

“This deprived young men from the benefit of the domesticating influence of wives and children, and instead allow them to continue hanging out with young male friends, increasing their vulnerability to drinking, partying, violent crimes, drugs and incarceration. Akerlof noted that drug abuse doubled from 1968 to 1998.

Confused bill

“The RH bill is a tricky bill, if not a confused one, drafted to please the Catholics and the Church by saying that it will prevent abortion but at the same time providing contraceptives that leads to abortion and imposing strict penalties for those who do not help in this abortive process.

“RH as defined in the bill is “a state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity in all matters relating to the reproductive system and its functions and processes.” If an unwanted baby in the womb of a mother causes mental and social anguish, will the bill protect the unborn baby over the mental and social anguish of a mother?

“RH’s definition in the bill is the same definition that the United Nations has, the same UN that funds ways to legalize abortion.

“A high ranking official of a foreign country massively funding reproductive health services in the Philippines categorically stated last April (2009) that “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion”.

“A local columnist wrote in November 2008 that in Mexico City, “the long struggle for reproductive health and rights culminated in the recent passage of a law lifting all restrictions on abortion”. Many countries all over the world and the United Nations agencies work for reproductive health and rights until they have fully facilitated access to abortion.

No protection for unborn

“The bill that enshrines the protection of women at all cost likewise removes the protection for the unborn and restricts the freedom of:

“1. the parents who do not have any choice but to allow their 10-year old kids to be taught in schools their sexual rights and the means to have a satisfying and safe sex;

“2. the spouses whose consent is not needed for a spouse to undergo ligation or vasectomy;

“3. the employers who are compelled, whether they believe or not, whether it is against their conscience or not, to provide their employees reproductive health care supplies, devices, surgical procedures at the expense of imprisonment and/or fine;

“4. the health workers who will be fined and imprisoned if they fail to provide health care services such as ligation, vasectomy regardless of their and the patient’s civil status, religion, gender, and age; and

“5. Filipinos in general who will be fined and imprisoned for expressing an opinion against the bill once it becomes a law.

“The bottom line is: Are we going to allow our daughters, granddaughters, nieces to be treated as mere sex objects?”

2010 Philippine Collegiate Champion ADMU Blue Eagles

Congratulations to Coach Norman Black and the Ateneo Blue Eagles for defending successfully the national collegiate title in the Champions League (PCCL) Philippine Collegiate Championship. Ateneo is not only the three-peat UAAP champion but also a back to back national collegiate champion – a feat difficult to achieve in the highly competitive collegiate basketball.

Visit www.CollegiateChampionsLeague.net for more details on the 2010 Philippine Collegiate Championship.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.