Mothers have rights, too
We all love our mothers. Especially so us Filipinos. (Maybe only Italian men outdo us in this regard?) Indeed, during the last observance of this occasion—admittedly a “Western” invention that we have adopted with alacrity—mothers everywhere seemed to bask in their families’ adulation.
Hosting a balikbayan couple, we searched for restaurants to hold a “Mothers’ Day” luncheon and found to our dismay that the restaurants we had eyed were all fully booked. Finding an open slot at Dulcelin’s at the UP Town Center, we arrived at the mini-mall to find the parking lot full and the premises filled with family groups. Ours was probably the biggest group at the restaurant, counting two generations of mothers (and fathers) rowdily posing for pictures.
Afterwards we trooped to the Valle Verde 2 clubhouse for the clan’s Flores de Mayo rituals and found the hall festooned with two huge banners bearing the faces of our mothers and of the mothers among us cousins and among the nieces. Indeed, the generations are moving on!
In the 20 years or so it took to get the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law (RPRH) passed by Congress, and in the agonizing year-long wait before the Supreme Court ruled on its constitutionality, I had often despaired that mine would be the only generation in my family to enjoy full reproductive freedom.
Contraception was not widely available during my mother’s reproductive years (which is maybe why she bore 11 children, with nine surviving), and in the years the reproductive wars were raging, it had often seemed that contraceptives would not even be allowed for the use of my daughter’s generation.
And so I heave a sigh of relief that, before she becomes a mother herself, my daughter will enjoy all the autonomy and freedom to decide “if, when, how often, and with whom” she will get pregnant and become a mother. Well, she’s certainly of age!
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It is a development that should be welcomed by all mothers—and potential mothers—around the country as well.
Or as the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) puts it: “there is no greater gift for Filipino mothers than the immediate and effective implementation of the RPRH Law.” Commission Chair Remedios Rikken emphasizes that “every mother deserves quality and comprehensive healthcare, thus making the RH law a victory of Filipino women.”
Still, there is work to be done. “Every day must be Mother’s Day,” says Rikken. “Every mother deserves to be respected, recognized and appreciated as motherhood is the most challenging, never-ending and most fulfilling vocation of a lifetime.” She reminds as well of the need to recognize that motherhood takes on many forms—child mothers, solo mothers, acting moms, surrogates and guardians—who “love and nurture their children and families despite their difficult or diverse circumstances.”
Also coming as an appropriate coda to the observance of Mother’s Day is the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming that indeed the rape of a wife by her husband is still rape. As the high tribunal declared: “A husband does not own his wife’s body by reason of marriage… Sexual intercourse, albeit within the realm of marriage, if not consensual, is rape.”
By marrying, said our justices, a woman “does not divest herself of the human right to an exclusive autonomy over her own body and thus, she can lawfully opt to give or withhold her consent to marital coitus.”
Truly, we best honor the mothers among us by first, recognizing their humanity and respecting their needs and preferences, especially their autonomy and ownership of their own bodies (though I’ll also include their dreams, ambitions, desires and destinies). Then we further honor them by protecting them, defending them, respecting them (and not raping them in the guise of marital privilege). Strange as it may seem to some, mothers have rights, too!
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And so do people living with HIV. They have the right to privacy and confidentiality, to tell or not tell people their HIV status, to seek or not seek treatment, and to gain access to treatment regardless of their financial condition.
Which is why I find puzzling and disappointing the recent Department of Health position on the amendment of the AIDS prevention and control act. A DOH spokesman said the department is seeking to change the law so that it could now enforce mandatory HIV screening for “high-risk groups and certain target populations.”
This is certainly a far cry from earlier DOH policy calling for voluntary testing since mandatory or forced testing would drive the disease “underground.” There is the fear that if testing is imposed on the “target” groups, people who may be HIV positive would conceal their status and refuse to avail of necessary treatment for fear of being stigmatized, punished, shunned or abandoned.
Such a reversal of policy comes at a particularly unfortunate time since the modalities of treating HIV have become increasingly available and affordable.
In the United States, federal health officials are recommending a daily pill “that has been shown to prevent infection with the virus that causes” AIDS. An article in the New York Times says that the new guidelines were formulated because condom use, described as “effective but unpopular with many men” has so far failed to bring down the number of HIV infections in the United States, currently holding at 50,000 a year.
The drug regimen, involving the drug Truvada, is called PrEP, for pre-exposure prophylaxis and is recommended for “gay men who have sex without condoms; heterosexuals with high-risk partners such as drug injectors or male bisexuals who have unprotected sex; patients who regularly have sex with anyone they know is infected; and anyone who shares needles or injects drugs.”
