MANILA, Philippines - We’re a Catholic country” must stop being an excuse for our government to not provide reproductive healthcare to the three-million Filipino women who can’t afford it. Many Latin American countries like Brazil, which can claim to be even more Catholic than the Philippines, do promote contraception even though abortion is still prohibited. Preventing unintended pregnancy is the best way of reducing the need for abortion, and that’s why the long-beleaguered RH Bill is actually very pro-life. Whether the CBCP deliberately obfuscates the issue or just fails to understand (perhaps the calcified layers of dogma prevent certain synapses from firing), the RH Bill is not out to rid the nation of new babies through any means possible.
The provisions in the RH bill are well defended by the Constitution and comply with international law as well as the Magna Carta of Women. Some of the objections to the bill are based on unfounded assumptions, like sex education will lead to promiscuity. However, Atty. Elizabeth Pangalangan of ReproCen says, “It’s not that the Catholic Church here is strong; it’s that the State is weak.” Despite evidence that the majority of the public is for RH, legislators for years have been afraid of the Church and its perceived power, even though it’s a basic principle of the Constitution that the Church must be separated from the State. Yet, no pro-RH senatorial or congressional candidate lost in the last election due to his or her stand. Priests may rail at individuals from their pulpit, but if that happens maybe it’s time to go find a new parish.
Catholics who follow their own moral compass will not let the hierarchy dictate to them what good conscience is. “When conscience is reduced simply to serving norms or an ideology, conscience is dead,” argues theologians JF Keenan SJ and Thomas Kopfensteiner, quoted in a paper published by Catholics for Choice. The Catholic Church is not infallible, and even though it took 359 years to “rehabilitate” Galileo for his heretical notion of who revolves around what, we can expect the Pope to come around one day and apologize for the failure to respect and defend human rights — particularly those of women.
The passage of the RH Bill in the 15th Congress is looking to be a reality, 10 years and 19.3 million more people after Rep. Edcel Lagman first filed House Bill 8110. Four versions have already been filed within the first 100 days of the new administration, the latest one by Sen. Miriam Santiago. These new bills, including Lagman’s refiled House Bill 96, maintain the freedom of informed choice wherein parents, couples and women can decide from both natural and artificial family planning methods. Elizabeth Angsioco of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines expressed her confidence in a tweet that read, “A very strong pro-RH statement from Speaker Belmonte read by Rep. Erin Tanada. RH Bill will be prioritized this Congress. :)”
So what about the religious opposition, who, if in a Monty Python musical would burst into the song Every Sperm is Sacred but in real life bear down with the inevitable threats and condemnations? Sen. Santiago said it best, as she always does: “Read the bill first. The bill is not pro-abortion, it is pro-life. It ensures that women who need care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and not left to die,” a practice that is a tragic human rights violation. Each year, 560,000 Filipino women turn to illegal and unsafe abortions; 90,000 of those suffer from complications, and 1,000 die. When the ‘shops started throwing around the excommunication word, a friend on Twitter commented, “They’re so focused on being Catholic they’ve forgotten what it means to be a Christian.”