I am pro-life, and I support the RH Bill

I avoid writing about my stand on reproductive health issues here in UNBLOGGED because I have other blogs that deal with these. The thing is people attending last Friday's Church-sponsored anti-RH Bill rally actually believed that abortion is part of the bill. I can accept people who are against the RH Bill because of their religious views. What I find unacceptable is spreading misinformation about it.

I wonder why the label “pro-life” is assumed by those against the RH Bill. Am I anti-life if I support the RH Bill? Am I immoral? Why do bishops call the RH Bill “demonic?” Can’t God be the judge of that?

If they claim they are pro-life, why do they wish ill of RH backers? Why do they play “audio messages, one of which features a lola character wishing for lightning to strike lawmakers backing the bill?  

How can these holier-than-thou know each RH advocate? Do they know ...?

I am pro-life.

I am for the RH Bill.

I am pro-life because I believe that all births should be planned and wanted by their parents.

I am pro-life because I am against abortion except for special cases, such as mothers dying from pregnancy complications.

I am pro-life because I believe women do not have to die during childbirth.

On the Day of the Unborn, we celebrated the 25th birthday of Lauren, my eldest daughter. She might not like to hear this but she was conceived after determining my fertile days out of the Billings Ovulation Method. I have never used chemical and hormonal ways to achieve or avoid pregnancy only because I knew all about natural family planning methods. In the Billings method, not all women are open to the idea of touching the discharge from their vulva. Perhaps it is the upbringing that “you are not supposed to touch your vagina except during washing.” Oh yes, one of the nuns told us that. This is the same religion that promotes the Billings method.

I am blessed to be married to the love of my life for the past 25 years, my boyfriend for seven years. He is my one and only lover and to see our children are truly miracles of God and a union of our love. What more can I ask from God? A baby is a gift of life. Tears of joy always overcome me in every birth of my children. They are truly God’s greatest gifts ever given to me. I wish every mother receives this gift of life.

It is this wish that prompted me to support the RH Bill in 2008. It is also the year I stopped going to the Catholic Church in the Philippines, but that is another story. Even though I left the Catholic Church, it does not mean I stopped loving and believing God. It is my love of God that moves me to help women who die daily from childbirth and who are ignorant of reproductive health issues.

It saddens me that the bishops wrongly claim that the RH Bill is something that promotes abortion and adolescent promiscuity. I feel these bishops have been intellectually dishonest and ignored the good faith of RH advocates. They have failed to proclaim the life-saving and values-formation character of this public health measure, which many desire to be passed into law.

Misconceptions about the RH Bill have been clarified many times and I’ve already shared 10 facts about reproductive health in the Philippines. However, let me show some facts to disprove the belief of the Catholic Church that birth control pills are abortifacients and that the RH Bill is all about abortion.

1. Abortion is illegal, criminal and punishable by law. There is absolutely no provision in the RH Bill about the legalization of abortion.

2. Abortifacient is defined in the website prolifephysicians.com as “a drug and/or device that kills a newly formed human being, whether by directly killing the baby or by preventing implantation.”

3.  Life begins with conception. Fertilization only needs a sperm and an egg to complete. Conception requires a woman who will conceive. Conception comes from the root word “conceive,” which in turn comes from the Latin word concipere — “to take in and hold; become pregnant.” The bottom line: a fertilized egg needs to successfully implant in a woman before conception — meaning pregnancy— begins.

4. All contraceptive pills and intrauterine conceptive devices (IUDs) are not abortifacients and will not induce abortions. These are meant to suppress ovulation, which stops fertilization and the formation of a fetus. You can download this fact sheet on contraception and abortion. Modern contraceptives are in the World Health Organization's (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines.

5. Modern contraceptives like the IUDs, pills and injectibles are available even in countries where abortion is strictly prohibited. The best example is Ireland where, like the Philippines, Catholics make up 86.8 percent of the population, and where a similar constitutional provision protecting the "unborn" exists.

Reproductive health is about using contraceptives so you can have babies only when you want to, and so you can achieve a family size you can comfortably support. It is about producing children with love and producing them responsibly so your limited resources can provide them a good life, not one where they sleep in sidewalks or eat rice flavored with patis day in and day out. It is about helping women avoid the health complications caused by closely spaced births or unplanned late pregnancies. Caring about all these things is being concerned with life. That's what being pro-life is about.