A time to pray

Even if the Lower House of Congress ends the debate on the RH bill, the controversies surrounding it will not end. And the reason is simple: many points of fact and of law brought out during the debate have been totally ignored, or have not been denied, or satisfactorily refuted or proven by its proponents as incorrect and false. The debate on the bill would have ended long before, and proper and intelligent voting could have followed, if the sponsors and backers of the bill had only addressed directly and answered satisfactorily the following issues raised:

Are the sponsors of the bill its real authors?

No. As early as the ’90s certain foreign groups already started promoting the alleged “reproductive rights” of women through the adoption of reproductive health laws and policies supposedly aimed at saving the lives and protecting the health of women all over the world. In fact some local government units (LGUs) have already enacted ordinances patterned after this RH bill of the foreign lobbyists. But subsequently these foreign lobbyists wanted it to be a more encompassing law of national application. So they ask some Congressmen and Senators to sponsor the bill. To make it “sensitive to – and effective in – our cultural, economic and political context” and to disguise the real purpose of the bill, other features were added. Thus the title of the bill now includes not only “Reproductive Health” but also “Population Development” and lately “Responsible Parenthood” according to P-Noy.

Who are these foreign groups pushing for the passage of the bill?

They are United States (US) based groups tapped by the US government itself and certain United Nations (UN) agencies that the UN uses at the instance of the US to make it appear that this is a global undertaking for the benefit of developing countries. Specifically they are the UN Fund for Population Development and Assistance (UNFPA) which grants financial assistance to developing nations that will pass the RH bill to achieve certain “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG).

Then there are the private groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which operates the largest abortion business in the US; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has recently set aside $4.4 billion to promote abortion in other countries. They operate here by supporting local NGOs like the Philippine Legislative Council for Population Development (PLCPD) and the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) to push for the passage of the RH bill that appropriates P3.3 billion in taxpayer’s money to fund contraception, sterilization and sexuality education in Philippine schools. In 2011 alone the FPOP received from IPPF the amount of $625,095 to work for the passage of the bill.

With this kind of foreign groups, it is quite clear that they are pushing for the passage of the RH bill to “ensure access to abortion services within an integrated sexual and reproductive health package.” Abortion is indeed one of IPPF’s Five “A”s with the strategy of “Advocating for the right to safe abortion services and providing them to the fullest extent permitted by law” (Planned Parenthood eyes “scale up” of abortion in PH, by Dominic Francisco).

But the sponsors and backers of the bill claim that it does not allow abortion and in fact prevents abortion?

This claim is contradicted by the provisions of the bill itself allowing universal access to an entire range of contraceptives which actually cause abortion as medically proven by documented researches. Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) itself found that some contraceptives cause cancer and other serious diseases. And even if they do not directly cause abortion, contraception leads to abortion because “the use of contraception implies that while sexual activity is important, babies are a nuisance to be avoided. That viewpoint soon spreads to babies already growing inside their mothers. Such babies are often spoken to as mere “blobs of tissue” to be terminated at the whim of the pregnant woman and their doctors. Contraceptive practice moves all too easily from preventing conception to destroying fertilized ova.” (Dr. Les Hemingway, M.B., B.S., “Contraception and Common Sense”)

What the RH bill prevents is the crude, unhealthy and dangerous way of taking out babies from their mother’s womb by making it safer and healthier through the use of contraceptives. This is the real meaning of reproductive health. This is confirmed by the WHO which states that “restrictions on abortion demean women as decision makers and deter and delay them from seeking the reproductive health care they need and place their health and autonomy at risk. In short reproductive health means safe abortion. And this is concretely shown by USA, the formulator of the RH bill, where 500 million babies have already been killed through abortion since Roe vs. Wade was promulgated.

Nevertheless, while the RH bill makes these contraceptives available especially to impoverished women, they still have the freedom of choice in using them or not.

Our laws definitely do not give anybody including poor women, the freedom to kill babies in their wombs by opting to use contraceptives that cause abortion.

Even then we still need the RH bill for population control because our country is already overpopulated which is the main cause of poverty and classroom shortage.

Our population may still be growing but we are not overpopulated. There is just overconcentration of population in urban areas. In fact World Bank statistics show that our population growth rate has been steadily declining from 3.3% in 1960 to 1.7% in 2011.

To be sure according to the “Emerging Markets Equity Team” of Morgan Stanley, “our booming population is not a disadvantage” but a “big economic plus” because the concentration of people and business drives growth. In fact BSP Governor Tetangco said that “While some countries are facing problems relating to aging population, the Philippines is set to enter its ‘demographic sweet spot.’ Studies have shown that extended periods of accelerated economic growth coincided with the countries entering this period.” Hence even the Wall Street Journal has warned that the RH could derail the country’s economic growth.

Therefore, now is the time to pray that P-Noy and our legislators be given the gift of discernment between good and evil. Even if 70% of our people allegedly favor the RH bill according to surveys, it does not mean that the RH bill is good for us especially because those 70% have not been properly informed, or misinformed. Let us therefore join the prayer rally at the EDSA Shrine tomorrow, August 4.

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