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When RH bill becomes a law





When RH bill becomes a law

When the latest SWS survey indicated that seven of every 10 respondents do favor the reproductive health bill, chances are, CBCP is correct in thinking that indeed there ought to be money circulating around from a foreign lobby group, this despite SWS’ claim that the survey is of its own initiative and therefore not a commissioned one in particular. True or false, it is all beyond us. Polling circuits can sometimes do push-polling job at every turn, anyway.

One bishop is reported to have said that polling circuits are into this mode – they issue some kind of mind-conditioning surveys with the end in view of influencing how people accept or reject the RH bill. It remains of doubtful validity whether or not the findings are reflective – at least beyond being merely a statistical trend – of how the population looks at the proposed reproductive health bill. It will always be valid to ask whether the respondents have the capacity to understand how they reply to the questionnaires.

Suppose that in fact, HB 5043 was unanimously approved at the House of Representatives when Members voted today on Third and Final Reading. Consider further that when transmitted to the Senate, it was likewise approved through a counterpart Senate bill and that in a subsequent bicameral conference, this 14th Congress would in fact have approved the bill for PGMA’s final signature and approval. Ergo, we have a new law.

What would the days be after today when the law would have been firmly erected to govern the lives of families, married couples, parents, women, children, adults? What will schools, churches, hospitals do? What will be the evolving new moral order? What kind of sociological phenomenon will evolve among the population that will be affected with the new law? Will not an unfolding scheme and scene be invasive of our psyche? Whose economic holiday will it all be? Will drugstores be the first beneficiary? Will new clinics open to accommodate post-abortion cases? Will doctors have more patients that they ever thought there will be?

Truly, contraceptive pills will flood the market to the extent that perhaps, young girls can buy them at the nearest sari-sari store in much the same way that young boys can buy every kind of condom from every nearby outlet that perhaps, even cigarette vendors may have to sell condoms as they sell candies and cigarettes in the streets. Pharmaceuticals will produce millions of contraceptive pills per day as they would sell like hot potato. Industries into the sale of silicone or rubber as a raw material will experience a boom. Beauty parlors might even have to sell condoms, pills as well if not in fact have services for IUDS, whatever.

The intellectual culture in all educational settings, be them – in the campuses of elementary schools, high schools, colleges or universities – will dramatically adopt to certain changes brought about by what the law can permit or allow, more than what it cannot permit or disallow. There will be changing attitudes and beliefs that will indicate themselves in changed behavioral patterns from as early as children in their Grade III or Grade IV levels. They shall be exposed to a kind of compulsory sex education.

By making condoms or pills very much available from every outlet, students in high school will have little to worry about getting into teen-age or pre-marital sex since the law has opened the door wide open for so-called ‘freedom of choice’. This simply means that children have the right over their bodies and this literally enough, includes that right to have an abortion in case they somehow get pregnant and they know their parents would not approve of it. Young boys feel safe and therefore think they can engage in teen-age sex with anyone in the opposite sex comforted with the thought that in using condoms, they don’t have to get the girls impregnated.

What then will be the resulting moral norm in so far as their young lives are concerned? What about other young couples, women who also would like to have a piece of the action? With pills, even married women can comfortably make love with men other than their husbands, can’t they? Or so with men with some packs of condom in their pockets? Who would fear sex with anyone when the law would have opened wide so-called “freedom of choice”? The RH bill has successfully blurred the traditional notion on when pregnancy begins. It has successfully blurred the traditional notion on when human life begins. How can the law pretend to think that the fetus in the mother’s womb may not yet be a human being?

Even the field of medical science has been invaded by pseudo-theories of pregnancy or conception. Even the thin moral fabric of our existence has been torn with a kind of attitude that the law will want to popularize. Even the rubric of our traditional social orientation has been altered. USA did not transform itself into a better union, did it? Nor did Europe? Now, RP is the citadel of Christianity, supposed-to-be, but if this law be erected, what would it leave us to? A new “world war” has just been launched and our nation is under attack. From our parishes to the Papacy, are we still afforded with strong moral moorings so that we don’t have to go astray?

A whole compendium of literature has already been documented proving how this contemporary social orientation has destroyed the homes, families, marriages, youth, children, women, parents. Are we here to let this happen to our own national domain? The first five years after the law is erected, futuristic wise, will tell just how bad we have gone with the RH bill enacted into law. Then and there will the framers, lobbyists, apologists, beneficiaries, patrons of the bill will realize that in the next generation of children – their very own – have just become the victims. So for a few pounds of money, why risk a future? Without risk of being wrong, the embryo is a human being!


Posted by nielsky_2003 on 10/18/2008 07:32 PM [18590 views]

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To the author
Posted on: 2009-08-14 00:36:02   By: iceman
  Edited By: iceman
On: 2009-08-14 00:38:24
the link was supposed to be beside the "start with this article line"

No offense but your article really hit a button while I was doing some reading on this topic. I think your article is too judgemental and pessimistic, as well as lacking in research. You should try to find out more on what the RH bill really says. Its not just all about sex and all that. Although like all things it has both a good and a bad side. But we still have to make a decision at the end of the day. But before that we have to RESEARCH and THINK things through very carefully.

Start with this article from a newspaper. [
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20081103-169885/The-many-faces-of-the-RH-bill] It was written by Fr. Joaquin Bernas,S.J. a priest from the top university in the Philippines.

The purpose of the RH bill is not all that bad. But the problem would probably implementing it, especially with the kind of government that we have...


    Re: To the author
    Posted on: 2009-10-14 23:25:28   By: proRH
     
    I agree that this article lacks research.

    As a Catholic I do hold on to morality, but as an educated Filipino citizen I think you are missing the bigger picture or the pragmatic side that this bill espouses.

    It has been emphasized over and over again that this bill does not promote abortion. Are you even aware of several reproductive health diseases which women suffer from? And birth control pills are often the medicine prescribed by gynecologists to their patients? This bill was not written to encourage premarital sex even if the mindset of so many anti-RH Bill supporters says so. If you will only read the full text thoroughly, you will see that it gives greater weight to the physical well-being of women and children.

    Let us use our common sense here. Morality does not just pertain to sex outside marriage or the untimely awakening of the youth about their sexuality. Morality is an affair of several economic, political, and social dimensions. Denouncing this bill with the simplistic argument about a new "world war" is not logically tenable. There is already an ongoing war, and that is the complex and intertwined problems faced by our country brought about by overpopulation.

    How do you expect a thief to be moral when he no longer has any food on his table to feed himself and his family? How would you account for the incessant crimes that happen in our country everyday wherein poverty is the root cause? We all know that in the hierarchy of needs, food and water are found in the bottom with morality following only on the second tier.

    If there is a couple with seven children and the former can't feed the latter with nutritious food, and could not send them to school because of extreme poverty, would your apprehension about the proliferation of pills and condoms alleviate this family’s misery? There is nothing moral about thirst, hunger, and illiteracy. I am sure that even you will agree with me that God would never want to see His children live in destitution.

    Sure, we have the government to blame. I will not conceal my disapproval of those seated in public office and betray the public trust. Most anti-RH Bill supporters would say that more jobs should be created; or the government should spread industrialization in the provinces to rid Manila of its overcrowding and traffic congestion problems.

    These are true but spreading industrialization to the provinces is not the solution for chucking the blatant problem of overpopulation. Even if a couple with eight children residing in Manila suddenly moves to Bukidnon because the father found a job there, this will not change the fact that they still have eight mouths to feed. Again, as common sense and plain economics dictate, the resources available should be proportionate to the number of consumers.

    Assuming that the couple is wealthy enough, wouldn’t they be able to give a better life and future to their children if they only have at least 2 or 3 instead of 8? This is analogous to a piece of cake. Divide it into many portions and you decrease each eater’s satisfaction.

    I am arguing that it is a two-way street for the government and the people. The government has too many shortcomings and too many problems to be able to govern in a well-equipped manner, but the people need empowerment through education so they may know what is going and what to do not just with regard to their bodies, but in the state which is supposed to give them the maximum welfare. The initiative should come from the government itself and this will work- despite the putrid scent of the current political administration- if and when the people will understand how controlling the population boom could curtail the other existing problems of our country.

    And please, let us stop comparing the Philippines to the other countries with large populations and are still classified as first world. First of all, did it ever occur to you that our country’s land area is probably just a quarter of their land area?

    Second, please take some time to research on those first world countries with only a few inhabitants. Do Australia and its invitation to potential migrants ring a bell to you? Australia is a land mass that comprises the continental mainland, very progressive and yet its population does not exceed 30 million as of this typing. We are already approximately 90 million and counting, and if we compare the size and population of our country with Australia, anyone in his right mind would stop and think at the alarming disproportion shown by the data.

    Morality should linger of course, but keep in mind that there is no law that has no downside to some degree.

    Can you not see and feel how so many Filipinos are getting sick? Committing crimes? Dying? If anyone can logically, statistically, medically, and economically prove that it is only corruption and bad governance that causes Juan de la Cruz to suffer, then conspicuously post your proof so that the rest of us may be enlightened.

    Please be informed about House Bill No. 5043.









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