The nexus of the anti-RH challenge

Mary Racelis’ commentary (Opinion, 7/29/13) sorely misses or makes light of the nexus of the petitioners’ challenge to the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10354—i.e., the sanctity of life of both the unborn (fetus) and the mother. The protection of the life of both is mandated by Section 12, Article 2 of the 1987 Constitution.

The wild claim that the supposed deaths of 2,000 Filipino women, as of Aug. 6, 2013, were “the tragic consequence of the unrelenting opposition to reproductive health of its diehard critics” sends a chilling message. It’s adverse implication is ominous: Kill to live: a law of the jungle. It does not justify the killing of a human being, even if still unborn, who has as much right as the mother to live by being born.

The indulgences of the father and mother in the bliss of sex and love demand a corresponding responsibility—of parenthood, no less. The sexual appetite has a  definitive purpose: procreation (not recreation). It is divinely scripted for an otherwise drab and tiresome task of making babies.

This challenges the so-called reform-minded Catholics to help propagate the doctrine that in a way equates sexuality with coauthorship with the Creator to procreate and populate the world responsibly. To exempt the poor in this context is not being propoor; to help them find productive work to do is—something that not only the government but also reform-minded Catholics, most of whom are well off, can do.

The “Church’s apparent unwillingness to consider alternative views held by reputable scientists and couples on sex and love” is Gospel-oriented. And science cannot delve beyond physical realities—not with the mysticism of the Catholic Church.

Pandering to the poor’s proclivities does not make them propoor; neither helping women access carcinogenic abortifacent drugs make them prowomen.

Being propoor is reaching out to them, empathizing with them, praying for them, sharing love and food and mingling with them.  Being prowomen is counseling them on the evil of premarital sex; guiding them through unwanted pregnancies, if ever, with remorse and fear of God—and toward a firm resolution “to amend my life, go to confession and do penance. Amen.”

The Bible is replete with narratives about the poor and about women. Being grounded in the faith is what makes for not being swept away by the prevalent new spirituality and reformation adventurism—evidently, offshoot versions of secularism, commercialism and other forms of contemporary thinking prevalent in the “rat race of the asphalt jungle of modernism.”

As the world is in turmoil, may I offer a simple prayer: “Slow us down, Lord, and inspire us to send our roots down to the soil of life’s enduring values that we may grow toward the star of our greater destiny. Amen.”

—RUDY B. MEDINILLA,

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