Only way to save RH bill is to water it down

Debate Rages:

We have not seen the final text - because there is none yet — of the Reproductive Health bill that the Congress is being asked to pass and which the Catholic Church and proponents of the measure are passionately debating.

It is early but not premature, as some senators say, to discuss the proposed law’s likely substance, its objectives, the means sought to be used carrying it out, and the motivations of the vested groups, including the drug lobby, pushing it.

An intelligent discussion can hinge safely on the various versions circulating, including the old bill that died with the previous Congress and its reincarnations.

In the end, those who want to save the bill crawling in the legislative maze for the past 14 years may have to agree to substantial amendments that would water down the more contentious provisions.

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Safe Labels: To make it palatable, proponents have plastered the bill with the attractive labels of reproductive health, family planning, responsible parenthood, informed choice, gender equity, infant and child care, and fighting violence against women.

To minimize negative reactions, they avoid prominent mention of such terms as birth control, abortion, drug lobby, contraception, eugenics, and state intervention into private choices.

On the other hand, the objectors — especially the Catholic Church (what ever happened to the other sects?) — argue from the towering dogma of faith and morals and the basic concept of God-given life. They have to come down to ground level.

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Coverup: Although tagged under Reproductive Health, the measure encompasses a wide range of subjects. Some of them — such as maternal and child care, family planning, sexually transmitted infections — are already covered by existing law and policy.

Many taxpayers are then asking if the over-reaching bill is still necessary. What is needed, they note, is the proper implementation of laws and health programs.

If the problem being attacked by the bill is runaway population’s gobbling up scarce resources, many are asking why the government does not focus instead on improving revenue collection, cutting corruption and accelerating development.

Is the population phenomenon being used to cover up the mismanagement of the country’s rich human and natural resources?

And then, some RH bill versions have it that services will be targeted towards “the poor, needy and marginalized.” This sounds like eugenics, or some kind of selective breeding.

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Family Protection: Abortion, or the killing of the embryo, fetus or unborn person, is impliedly proscribed in the Constitution and explicitly criminalized in the penal code.

Critics express concern that with the RH bill mandating the use of various forms of contraception with abortifacient effects, such tolerance would condition the public mind into later allowing abortion on demand.

This will impact on Section 12, Article II, of the Constitution, which provides: “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

Read also Section 3(1), Article XV, which says: “The State shall defend the right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

No wonder many Catholics and their bishops, seeing the state intruding into their private affairs and their religious convictions, object to the RH bill that promotes anti-Catholic principles and practices.

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Hard To Sell: Pope Paul VI issued in 1968 his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (“Human Life”), reiterating the Church’s teaching that it is intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from being born into the world.

The encyclical defines contraception as “any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act (sexual intercourse), or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible.” This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and such methods.

The Church teaches that sexual intercourse, with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end which is procreation.

Now, that Church dogma on begetting babies being the end of the sex act might be difficult to sell to a growing number of Filipino Catholics.

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Compromise: If a compromise is to be sought (although the Church is not likely to agree to it), both sides could draw the line on conception, when life begins with the ovum and the sperm melding into one distinct human organism.

To my simple mind, once a human person is formed at conception, that life must be nourished and not destroyed. BUT before conception, can we not maybe fudge things a bit and say “Look, there’s no life yet to talk about.”

A compromise looks unlikely at this point, but cannot both sides agree that while abortion is a mortal sin and a crime, should not we allow selected methods of contraception?

What could be acceptable? I see no substantial difference in effect and intention, as far as preventing pregnancy is concerned, between abstinence or withdrawal and such physical barriers as the condom or the diaphragm.

But the Pill and other drugs manufactured to tamper with the natural processes and rhythm of the human body are something else. If only the drug lobby would go away.

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