RH bill inflicts violence
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:42:00 10/06/2008
MANILA, Philippines - We wish to tell our legislators that we expect much from them, that’s why we are very much interested to know the bills that they propose. We commend Sen. Edgardo Angara for authoring the Senior Citizen Bill and the Free Secondary Education Bill. They are laws that benefit our country’s old and young citizens.
But what is this Reproductive Health Bill? Is this meant to protect the health of women of reproductive age? Will their health not be adversely affected by contraceptives and injectables the primary purpose of which is to prevent ovulation? Is the bill not doing violence to women who naturally ovulate?
Even worse, contraceptives are abortifacient, which means that they cause abortion. On Aug. 26, 2008, we read in the Inquirer a letter explaining that pills, injectables and IUDs are abortifacient. It is natural for us human beings to die; but for unborn human beings to die by being flushed out while they are still embryos is not natural. That is doing violence to human life.
The inalienable right to life of every human individual from the first moment of conception is a constitutive trait of a civil society and its legislation. When the State does not place its power at the service of all, in particular, of its more vulnerable members, including unborn children, its very foundations are undermined.
Our legislators, including the proponents of this bill, should tell their mothers, “Thank you, Mom, for allowing the egg that your ovary produced to be fertilized and developed into ‘myself’ in your womb. Thank you for not using contraceptives. Thank you for bringing me into this world to serve mankind, especially the Filipinos who voted for me and who expect me to work for their good in all aspects—health, economic, educational, cultural and moral.”
The 2010 elections are fast approaching. We challenge our legislators to spend their pork barrel for our health care and for our economic, educational, cultural and moral well-being. We appeal specifically to the congressmen who support the Reproductive Health Bill to dump it because it will institutionalize a culture of death. This bill, therefore, is anti-life, anti-family and anti-people.
May the pro-life, pro-family and pro-people senators and congressmen win in the 2010 elections.
—GRIMUALDO AND AGNES
VICENTA SALAPARE, via e-mail
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