Wrong and wrong-headed on RH

WATCHING THE congressional debates on reproductive health, I am baffled by the anti-RH arguments.

One, the argument that contraceptives are abortifacients. Anti-RH advocates argue passionately that life begins at the moment of fertilization (and not much later, as their opponents say, at the moment of implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus). And then Rep. Amado Bagatsing now says that anything that prevents fertilization is abortion! “Ang contraceptives ay humaharang para huwag magbuntis, huwag magkita ang egg at ang ovum [sic] … Pagka hinadlangan mo, sa Ingles, ina-abort mo.”

Now tell me: How can a condom be an abortifacient when, simply stated, there is no fertilized egg to abort? How can one say with a straight face that life begins at fertilization but you can end life even before it begins? To quote Representative Bagatsing himself, “Mahirap ba maintindihan ’yon?”

Even more perplexing, if Bagatsing sincerely wishes to stop the almost half a million abortions annually in the Philippines, stopping unwanted pregnancies is the best antidote. Why would a woman choose the physical and emotional pain of abortion when a simple condom could have saved her from it all?

Two, the argument that RH goes against the beliefs of the Catholic majority and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Rep. Pablo Garcia says that the RH bill discriminates against the Catholic Church because it goes against the grain of Catholic teaching and the law must respect the religion of majority of Filipinos.

He is confused. On one hand, he states that the state must be neutral to religion. In the next breath, he reminds us that our Constitution’s preamble begins with the clause where we “implor[e] the aid of Almighty God” and that refers only to “the Catholic God.” The good congressman must make up his mind. Either we are a secular state or we are a theocracy.

Representative Garcia has taken a new, and very clever, tack. You see, when the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines blocks any legal recognition for RH, it is actually imposing its conservative interpretation of Catholic doctrine upon non-believers. In effect, Catholics object to RH, so the law must not promote RH.

Ironically that is precisely what the non-Establishment doctrine seeks to prevent, that is, God muscling his way using Caesar’s sword. The Philippine Congress is not an arm of the CBCP; the congressmen are not accountable to the Vatican. If the religion clause means anything in the Philippines, it means that the Catholic majority cannot veto congressional action on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Yet if you listen to Representative Garcia, it is we—I obviously count myself as an RH advocate—who violate neutrality when we try to stop the mighty CBCP. He is terribly mistaken. The RH bill does not impinge on the religious beliefs of traditional Catholics. Under the RH bill, all couples are free to choose how many children they want and, if they so choose, what family planning method to use. It guarantees free and informed choice. It is neutral on what method a couple chooses for themselves.

It doesn’t impose any choice on anybody. Traditional Catholics are absolutely and completely free to follow their faith, have unprotected sex and beget all the children they want. What the RH bill secures is equal freedom to parents who believe differently—who would plan the spacing and number of children so that they shelter, feed and nurture them well.

Third, that is why, if there was one congressman who made sense this week, it was Manny Pacquiao. The RH bill is superfluous, he says, because people are already using condoms or birth control pills. (But what did Nanay Dionisia mean on TV when she said on Jinkee’s using the pill in the past: “Gumamit siya nung bago pa sila kasal”?)

Manny is absolutely correct. That is the state of the law. Condoms can be bought over-the-counter, except in Alabang, which metaphorically situates itself in Islamabad. What is at the heart of the RH law—and this is what the anti-RH groups strangely underplay—is using government money to subsidize reproductive choices.

If all we want is to let couples choose whether and how to plan their families, they already have that choice—except that poor Filipinos can’t afford it on their own. They have no access to contraceptive information and rely on superstitious mumbo-jumbo. They would rather spend their little cash on food rather than condoms.

Manny is right: Filipino couples already have reproductive freedom. What the RH bill does is to help poor couples who can’t afford to enjoy that freedom. Ramon Magsaysay said: They who have less in life should have more in law. We have since codified this “social justice” principle into the Constitution, recognized the “right to health” and the duty of the state to make essential “health and other social services available to all the people at affordable cost.”

I surmise that anti-RH groups have fudged the social justice argument for two reasons. One, on reproductive liberty, they can invoke the Bible (“Go forth and multiply…), but on social justice, we can invoke the Bible against them (“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren…”). Two, religion-based arguments are constitutionally privileged and politically potent. In terms of debating strategy, Manny was well-advised to argue that to enjoy reproductive liberty, we do not need any new law. But the poor can’t afford it without government help. Surely the poor kid from GenSan hasn’t forgotten from whence he came.

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