On the RH Bill

MR. SPEAKER, ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES... I STILL VOTE NO.

An assembly that enacts a law that is terribly wrong will make the Lord’s angels weep and the faithful legions in this country despair.

Paraphrasing an American citizen who stood up to a bully of a senator 58 years ago, let me say, “As sure as God is in heaven, He will never forget the decision we will make here today.”

I STILL VOTE NO.

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Youth leaders: Yes to RH

(A collective message from the Cebuano Youth Ambassadors, Student Council Alliance of the Philippines (SCAP)-Cebu City and the Visayas chapters of SCAP, Reproductive Health and Gender Advocates’ Movement and First-Time Voters Network.)

The pursuance of Reproductive Health (RH) has never been this far in our history as a country. For almost 15 years now, a concrete measure to provide for RH care services that our people deserve is still pending and debated. It’s with this urgency that we call our Cebuano legislators to say yes for RH Bill.

Firstly, it’s myopic to think that being Pro-RH is being anti-life. The RH bill will save lives. We are human rights advocates, and we believe that life’s sanctity must be protected not just at conception but after a child is born. Each child is a blessing and parents must have children they can responsibly take care of. Those children must be given their rights, and most especially, all the love they can get. But please look around you and you will see there are so many children not being properly taken care of, so many children whose human rights are not being provided for. So many children want an education but if you live in a household of 12, it just gets harder and harder for parents and their children to have that dream realized.

The sad truth is that many just walk by the children on the streets when they ask for some coins for food to fill their stomachs. Many do not help, and then we condemn them for sniffing rugby to ease their hunger. What is your answer to their cries? We really need the responsible parenthood, reproductive health and family development bill to be enacted.

From RH Agenda Visayas Chair, Gea Ecoy: “If I were a legislator and I said no to RH bill, my conscience would haunt me knowing that I could’ve done something to save mothers dying daily due to lack of maternal health care, to rectify the lack of information to guide every one about the choices that ultimately affect their life and those they love, knowing that I could have done something so that a young girl wouldn’t contract cervical cancer or that someone would acquire AIDS, knowing that so many children deserve their human rights to be given—such as education, a happy life, all the love—but many of them are just left on the streets to fend for themselves. I am using my conscience in saying yes to the RH bill.”

If we say the RH Bill does not deserve funding, it’s just the same as saying their lives do not matter.

Did you know that 1 of 4 youth in a national survey said that AIDS is curable? How do you expect people to make good decisions when we withhold accurate and values-oriented education about reproductive health, about themselves and their bodies, and ultimately, about their life? Who would educate the youth about these issues?  The Internet? Their peers? We deserve more than that. Parents are not withheld from educating their children, merely; they should be given partners to guide their children.

In a Social Weather Stations survey, covering Cebu, Parañaque and Manila, an overwhelming majority agreed that students should be given adolescent health education in schools, that the government of their city should have a policy on reproductive health and family planning, that it should provide free supply or service to the poor who wish to use any family planning method.

We therefore tell our legislators today: It’s not immoral that we ask to be equipped with proper education regarding what affects our lives and our health. Having options does not make us morally loose.

It doesn’t make you less of a Catholic or Christian to say yes for RH Bill. If you give rights and services to those who need it, if you save the life of a mother by enacting a law that promulgates so, if you teach children the value of sex, do you violate the law of God? We don’t think so.

Finally, we echo the words of Sister Joan Chittister,  Benedictine nun, author and speaker: “I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

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