Most paramount right

Like his inaugural address P-Noy’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) today promises to be an inspiring and eloquent speech that will once more stir the people to action and further enkindle their hope for the much needed reforms in government. As he has repeatedly said prior to his oath taking at the Luneta, the top priority of his administration is to first identify and analyze the real problems of the country and determine their causes before finding and applying the effective, doable and sustainable solutions.

Based on the pre-SONA statements coming from Malacanang, the perennial problem of poverty is definitely one of the top priorities that the P-Noy administration will tackle. Hopefully, after analyzing this problem, P-Noy and his team realize that: our alleged “overpopulation” which seems to be still growing has really nothing to do with our poverty problem contrary to the repeated protestation of the proponents and supporters of the RH bill; that the country’s population has some connection with the problem of poverty only because almost 80% of the Filipinos live below the poverty level; and that the solution to this problem lies not however in the reduction of the number of poor people by controlling their population growth but rather by eliminating or at least minimizing graft, providing good education and creating more jobs.

By now P-Noy and his men must have realized that this RH bill is nothing more but a subterfuge to impose the population control policy of some first world countries that promotes abortion through the initiative of the US using the UN and some well funded International Foundations to advance their hidden agenda of: (1)reducing the number of Filipinos who will depend and use our natural resources so that they can continue exploiting them and preserving theirs as shown by the Kissinger report during Nixon’s time declassified in the year 2000; (2) promoting and expanding the business of multi-national pharmaceutical companies which are manufacturing and distributing the artificial birth control pills and devices that are being made available especially to the poor using government funds; (3) helping some international organization like the International Planned Parenthood Foundation headed by Margaret Sanger who is the foremost advocate of abortion to promote eugenics or the Hitlerian policy of improving the racial qualities of future generation by eliminating the inferior ones.

Actually, the sponsors, advocates and supporters of the RH bill have repeatedly professed that they are against abortion and that abortion remains illegal in this jurisdiction. Yet one of the main features of the RH bill they want to be enacted into law is about the alleged reproductive health of women and the latter’s right to choose between natural methods of birth control which does not entail any expense on the part of the government, and the artificial methods which entail the use of government funds to purchase the whole range of contraceptive pills and devices for distribution and use of women who choose them as the means to plan their family. Obviously the bill is more concerned about the women’s reproductive rights than the right to life of the unborn child from the moment of conception since it allows the use of some contraceptives with abortive effects.

Our constitution however mandates that the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and of the unborn from the moment of conception. There are already laws and government programs protecting the life and promoting the health of the mother. But there is yet no law implementing the Constitutional mandate protecting the life of the unborn. Fortunately Congressman Roilo S. Golez, whose sterling records in the Lower House speak loudly for themselves, saw this glaring lack and thus filed House Bill No. 13 entitled “An Act Providing for the Safety and Protection of the Unborn Child and for other Purposes”.

As set forth in its explanatory note, “this law aims to remedy that oversight by recognizing that the unborn has a basic right to life and by extending the mantle of legal recognition and protection to it. Thus the concept of abortion, abortifacient, fetal development, juridical and legal personality of the unborn are defined and clarified for its benefit” In its declaration of policy, the bill says that “the humanity of the unborn child is not just a legal principle, or philosophical, moral or ethical belief but is an established biological fact as recognized by the Constitution and shown by the vast amount of knowledge acquired in the field of genetics, embryology and fetal development”.

Thus one of the main features of the bill is to categorically define some vague terms that would settle the issues as to their real meanings. Hence “unborn refers to a child at any stage of existence and development beginning from the union of the sperm and the egg until the birth stage; conception/fertilization refers to the precise moment that the sperm fertilizes the egg, which is when a new life is formed distinct in his/her genetic make-up from both the father and the mother; implantation refers to that stage of the development of the human life which takes place around five days after fertilization when the fertilized egg is implanted in the ovum; fetal development refers to the scientifically established development process of the beginning of human life from the union of the sperm and the egg until birth of the child”.

The bill also defines “abortion” as “any act or practice whether done intentionally or unintentionally, that cause or recklessly endanger or result in injury, damage, expulsion, interference in the natural development of the fetus, or death of the unborn child”; and “abortifacient” as “any device, medicine, substance, practice which may damage, injure, interfere or recklessly endanger or cause the expulsion or death of the unborn child”.

Apparently there are features in this bill which directly clash with some concepts in the RH bill. But if the RH bill’s proponents and supporters really mean that they are against abortion, they should also support this bill. After all, the right to life is more paramount and takes precedence over any other right.