At an open forum, I was asked how/what could be done to be enlightened on the reproductive health bill, an honest admission about a lack of knowledge or of forbearance to just being “told” what to do. I wasn’t satisfied with my answer, unable to do justice to someone’s honest desire to know more.
All I could say as a priest wrote me was that “there’s too much mud all over the place… a lack of clarity and a seeming lack of desire for it.” In Congress are the rounds of repeated questions: debating at cross purposes as in “back to back they faced each other,” wasting time to create deadlock, exhibiting mediocre minds as in the old lame line about Texas being able to contain the world’s population. The forces of the Church spout unbecoming, misleading, inflammatory labels, which we have had enough of. “If there is anyone in the Mass here who are (sic) pro-RH bill… please, go out.” It’s as if mud has hit the fan and is flying in all directions.
So here’s trying to help once again.
First, read the bill itself; then some background material like the model Consensus Bill for Population, Family Planning and Development collaboratively put together by business groups with the Philippine Center for Population and Development; an informative study on the proposed RH by the Loyola School of Theology and the John Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues, and up-to-date articles on Moral Theology.
Next, choose the main dimensions/angles/aspects under which you feel RH should be examined and marshal talking points under each. Three considerations: the aspects are often interrelated in a cause-effect and reciprocal fashion; having resource persons for each aspect is ideal; the following headings are my choices and the reader may have others in mind.
I would begin with the moral dimension for several reasons. First, it is the mother of all arguments for we are moral beings to the core. Second, it happens to be the main concern of the Church which happens to be the main opponent of RH. Lastly, upon it can rise or fall many of the other aspects.
Catholics may be surprised to find out that “the Church has never explicitly claimed to speak infallibly on a moral question.” Sorry to disappoint, but the position on contraception is not dogma, is not infallible; contraception may not be intrinsic evil (“always and everywhere wrong”), may or may not be immoral, depending.
Depending on what? Context looms large. Dramatically changing context across cultures, countries, on every conceivable front (historical, scientific, socio-economic, religious—name it) is so strong that collateral moral principles must be admitted as circumstances of context, intention and conscience are weighed in. Under such “microscopic” and “case-to-case” examination, RH assumes greater or lesser degrees of right and wrong. One size does not fit all. Invite a moral theologian to fill the gaps.
The next heading—government’s concern—is the legal-constitutional angle. Legal eagles Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. and Raul Pangalangan have written excellent columns in this paper. They can guide through the intricacies of freedom to choose, rights to “privacy,” access to information, the use of public resources, etc.
A fluid but very controversial heading is the scientific dimension. All the heat it generates may become moot as the beginning (and end) of life (conception, fertilization, implantation, ensoulment; biological being, human being) may in time be determined like sun or earth as center of our universe.
Flowing from the scientific is the medical-pharmacological angle. Examine the slippery slopes about contraception leading to abortion and to menacing levels of cancer and even blue babies, as night follows day; with the antis preferring a shrill “will” to a sober “may.” “Who taught them logic?” my husband quips. What’s so hard about an honest list of medicines that are abortifacients and those that are not and their side effects?
Very serious because of its cumulative effect on the nation is the socio-economic angle. Denied is the correlation between poverty and population; possible if one talks of Scandinavia, the United States or developed countries, but one has to be blind not to see its scourges in our poor country. Are more people per square meter, even if wretched, truly a nation’s wealth? “Population management” isn’t evil. How run or make a country run when half of its people are poor? Appreciate what P-Noy is going through. How likely is the bogey of a demographic winter of old people? Mahar Mangahas of Social Weather Stations can tell you.
The woman angle, deserves its own niche. “No woman should die giving life.” No newborn should be abandoned in a toilet bowl. Just past 30, “Nene,” whose husband is jobless, is on her sixth pregnancy with one child dead. “Patale ka na.” “Ayaw ng asawa ko.” It’s the millions like her that need help. Badly. Hear the sides of nuns, feminists, social workers.
Now hopefully, can this help the gentleman who asked?
Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist. Comments to marda_ph @yahoo.com, fax 8284454