Bill pregnant with meaning

Man-made rules enacted by a legislative body are supposed to regulate, limit, and protect the conduct of the members of a community or society.So they should be plain and clear enough to be understood and followed by those who are supposed to comply with them.Not only their title but more so their contents. If even prior to its enactment, a proposed legislation or a "bill" is already encountering lots of questions and its proponents are hard put in answering them, then that bill is bound to be misinterpreted and misunderstood if enacted into law. Such is the nature of House Bill 4110, which is beguilingly entitled "Reproductive Health Care Bill".

What could really be wrong with a bill that is designed to promote the health of those women concerned with producing their offsprings? Nothing.

But that is only as far as the title goes. A closer scrutiny of its contents readily raises doubts on the real intention of the bill-whether it is indeed for the health of women in their reproductive functions or it is just a part of a world wide program of population control that undermines the Philippine population control policy grounded on the Constitutional precept to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.

Reproductive health is one of the complimentary issues of population control which was in the agenda proposed by the 1994 World Population Conference in Cairo, Egypt and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing China.These conferences adopted population control methods with little regard for the life of the unborn particularly abortion and the use of artificial means of contraception.Since that time, bills have been proposed in Congress almost every year trying to introduce those depopulation programs. This year, it is H.B.4110 wrapped in a more attractive package.

Typical of any law are loopholes that are not easily seen at first glance.It would seem that the standard yardstick in the enactment of any law is to leave some room for its interpretation later on when it is already being applied to a particular situation.Hence even in Law Schools,one of the required subjects is known as "Statutory Construction" which is solely devoted on how to interpret laws.

H.B. 4110 is no exception. It has lots of nuances and subtleties that can lead to interpretations espousing birth control methods that drastically change our values on human life, especially the life of the unborn. The phrase, ‘reproductive health care" itself allows the use of family planning methods defined in the various documents of the Cairo and Beijing Conferences. These include abortion and the use of contraceptives.While abortion is not expressly legalized,the proposed law mandates for easier access to and widespread use of drugs or device that prevents pregnancy following sexual intercourse. These drugs are mostly abortifacients.They contain chemicals that induce premature delivery in case the embryo is nevertheless formed.Moreover, these chemicals cause various illnesses that are fatal, like the cervical and breast cancer.The bill also recognizes the "reproductive rights" or the right to reproductive self determination even of thirteen year old girls who may engage in sex and use contraceptives over the objection of their parents.If enacted into law, the bill may be used to justify so many practices detrimental to the physical and spiritual well being of our women contrary to what it professes to achieve.

The problem in the Philippines is not overpopulation, but over-concentration of population in urban areas. These are the breeding grounds of poverty and the consequent rise in criminality.Congress should perhaps concentrate more of their time and effort in drawing up bills that will promote over all country side development to disperse the population in the urban areas.The solution to our population problem lies in the improvement of the economy, not in reproductive health care.

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