Asian parliamentarians push for reproductive health plans

The importance of reproductive health to achieve development goals of the government was pushed during the conference of Asian parliamentarians at the Waterfront-Cebu Hotel in Lahug yesterday.

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, co-chairman of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population Development, said that without reproductive health government efforts to combat poverty could not be achieved.

The PLCPD had played host to the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population Development, which was attended by at least 14 legislators from Asian nations like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan.

The forum was also in preparation for the general assembly of the United Nations in New York this September where among the agenda for discussion is the development of a plan on gender and reproductive health.

Biazon said there is a connection between achieving the millennium development goals and people's reproductive health and rights.

"How can we promote gender and women empowerment or improve maternal and child health, even combat HIV/AIDS, if access to information and services on reproductive health and family planning remains largely limited? " Biazon told the gathering.

On the Catholic Church's opposition against reproductive health, another speaker Benjamin De Leon clarified reproductive health does not run counter against the views of the church.

De Leon, president of the Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc., said the government has been fair in implementing family planning methods but false reports had tagged it as very much in favor of the artificial method.

While the Church goes for the natural method, it believed the government favors artificial methods using condoms and pills, among others, which it branded as abortifacients.