Now, to work

Finally, finally, after a temporary restraining order that lasted next to forever (okay, I exaggerate, it lasted over a year) that came after a decade and a half of being in legislative limbo, the  Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act – RA 10354 or the RH Law – has been upheld against challenges and protests and can now be implemented.

Despite what the holier-than-thou’s may say, it is good news indeed for women all over the country, not so much for those who can go to hospital anytime and consult ob-gyne doctors, but those who have not been able to access or afford – or who did not even know about – reproductive health care. It is good news – life-saving news – for example, for the two young women, one barely out of her teens and the other in her early 20s, who recently gave birth to babies each weighing less than a kilo (their weights were measured in grams); both of these women did not intend to get pregnant but could not keep from getting pregnant, and when they did had zero pre-natal care because they could not afford it, and no one would help them (apparently not even the fathers of their babies). Both babies did not survive, but I hope that these two young women will now have a better chance at having healthy babies – when they are ready and choose to have children.

Good news as well for the 26-year-old woman with nine children whose husband works on and off at construction sites, or the woman who occasionally takes in laundry to earn some money to feed her four (or is it five?) children who says her jobless and usually drunk husband would take a machete to her if she refuses his sexual advances.

These and countless others like them are the women who would benefit from the implementation of RA 10354. It is not the intention of the law – or those supporting it, in or out of government – to force any woman not to have children. And definitely it is not about making anyone terminate or abort a pregnancy.  The law just seeks to allow women to have a say, to make a choice – an informed choice – about their bodies, about their future, and the future of the children they will bear. It’s certainly not about a one- or two-child policy, or saying who should and should not have children. The couple who wants to have a dozen children has as much right to do so as the couple who wants to have only one child. And each woman – whether in the city or in the barrio, in a swanky condo or in a nipa hut – should have the right and the means to decide whether and when she wants to have a baby. 

Now that both the pro and anti factions can claim victory with the Supreme Court’s solomonic decision, I hope the sanctimonious preachings and fire-breathing will stop, and everyone will do what they all claim they want to do – work hand-in-hand for the good of the country.