EDITORIAL - Overdue law

Eighty-two percent is an overwhelming figure. That’s the support expressed by Filipinos for having the choice to plan family size, as reflected in yet another survey conducted by pollster Social Weather Stations Inc. The survey, taken from June 3 to 6, showed 82 percent of 1,200 respondents nationwide seeing family planning as a personal choice that should not be interfered with. Sixty-eight percent believed the government should subsidize both natural and artificial methods of family planning. A hefty 73 percent also believed the government should educate couples on legal methods of planning their family size.

For several years now, surveys have consistently shown high public support for government-funded programs on family planning, birth control, reproductive health, responsible parenthood, or whatever term is used to describe the spacing of childbirth. Those results, reaffirmed in the latest SWS survey on the issue, are useful for lawmakers to bear in mind as they resume deliberations on the Reproductive Health bill. No part of the RH measure endorses abortion or the termination of pregnancy – the greatest criticism against the proposed legislation. As for contraception being tantamount to abortion, if no life has been conceived, how can it be aborted?

All arguments have been made for and against the RH bill, with a new dimension added for consideration last year: in a widely publicized interview, the ultra-conservative Pope Benedict XVI grudgingly endorsed the use of condoms for sex with prostitutes, to prevent the spread of AIDS and save lives.

 Women with sufficient education and income in fact do not need the RH bill; they know enough about reproductive health, enjoy full access to RH programs, and have the choice to practice contraception or not. The women who are deprived of this choice, and their right to reproductive health, are those who lack education and financial means.

 Several local government units have RH programs in place. But a law passed by Congress and signed by President Aquino, who endorsed the RH measure when he was a lawmaker, will make reproductive health programs part of national policy, backed by sufficient funding. This will also keep the country in step with global Millennium Development Goals on women’s health, which the Philippines has committed to achieve. It is time to pass this law.