MikeLigalig.com

as they say, the devil is in the details.  perhaps, we may have a better grasp of the pros and cons of the rh bill by reading the details, at our leisure.  i'm posting the whole text of the bill here, in installments (because the length is intimidating, hehe).  for our reading pleasure or displeasure, according to one's leanings...

    








When the first comprehensive version of the RH bill, House Bill 8110 or “The Integrated Population and Development Act of 1999”, was filed in the 11th Congress, the Philippines had a population of roughly 75 million. Today, 10 years later, we hold the dubious distinction of being the 12th most populous country in the world with a population of 94.3 million or a staggering increase of 19.3 million. This would translate to an annual average increase of almost two million every year in a decade.

However, it must be underscored that reproductive health goes beyond a demographic target because it is principally about the right to health and sustainable human development.
 
The enactment of the RH bill is long overdue because although, reproductive health has long been considered a basic universal human right, this right remains elusive and illusory for millions of Filipinos, especially the poor. Consider the following:

2.6 million Filipino women would like to plan their families but lack information and access to do so. (Family Planning Survey 2006)
   
The poorest Filipinas are still having an average of 6 children (this is almost 3 times their desired number of children). (FPS 2006)
   
44% of the pregnancies in the poorest quintile are unwanted. (FPS 2006)

Among the poorest women who would like to avoid pregnancy, at least 41% do not use any contraceptive method because of lack of information or access. (FPS 2006)
   
54% of married women do not want an additional child but 49% of them are not using any form of family planning method (2008 National Demographic and Health Survey).

22% of married Filipino women have an unmet need for family planning services (2008 NDHS), an increase by more than one-third since the 2003 NDHS.

Only 67% of all births in the Philippines are planned. The rest are either mistimed or unwanted (NDHS 2008).

Women want fewer children than what they actually have. The total wanted fertility in the country of 2.4 children is 27% lower than the actual total fertility rate of 3.3 children (NDHS 2008).

42% of women consider a two-child family as the ideal family size (2008 NDHS).

Correct and consistent use of contraceptives will prevent one-third of all maternal deaths and family planning helps prevent 1 million infant deaths worldwide (WHO and UNFPA)

Precise and regular use of contraceptives can decrease abortion rates by as much as 85% (Allan Guttmacher Institute).


Copy as filed on July 1, 2010



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continued---

The proposed bill is pro-poor, pro-women and pro-life.  Its principal beneficiaries will be the poorest of the poor and the marginalized.  Reproductive health and family planning significantly improves maternal health and lowers maternal morbidity.  Having the ability to plan and space children will afford women more employment and educational opportunities and will significantly lower abortion rates.  The bill will also prevent infant and child deaths.  Family planning will likewise mean larger investments in children’s health and education and better health outcomes for children.  With resultant lower maternal and infant deaths and capacity for more investments in health and education, RH is definitely pro-life.

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pagoryo-goryo pa gyod si mistel mugtay.  ang pros and cons naa ra sa mobasa, ajeje.

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continued---

The experience of our Asian neighbors clearly shows that a government-funded family planning program together with a comprehensive, health-based, rights-anchored and development-oriented policy on RH and population and development are crucial components in poverty reduction programs and a sound and sensible economic policy.

We cannot address adequately the problem of poverty and its attendant manifestations of poor health, crippling ignorance, widespread hunger, continuing unemployment, scarce mass housing and threatened environment if we do not squarely address the problem of a bloated population and high and unwanted fertility. Experts all agree that sustainable socio-economic development cannot be achieved if the issue of population is ignored or addressed separately from the issues of development and poverty.

Congress should not renege on its duty to enact laws that will protect and promote the right of Filipinos to overall health and well-being and sustainable human development.

Accordingly, approval of this measure is earnestly sought.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN


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Smear offensive

Rep. Edcel C. Lagman

THERE IS A CONTINUING campaign to discredit the reproductive health bill through misinformation. Straightforward answers to the negative propaganda will help educate and enlighten people on the measure.

The bill is not antilife. It is proquality life. It will ensure that children will be blessings for their parents since their births are planned and wanted. It will empower couples with the information and opportunity to plan and space their children. This will not only strengthen the family as a unit but also optimize care for children who will have more opportunities to be educated, healthy and productive.

The bill does not interfere with family life. In fact, it enhances family life. The family is more than a natural nucleus; it is a social institution whose protection and development are impressed with public interest. It is not untouchable by legislation. For this reason, the State has enacted the Civil Code on family relations, the Family Code, and the Child and Youth Welfare Code.

The bill does not legalize abortion. It expressly provides that “abortion remains a crime” and “prevention of abortion” is essential to fully implement the Reproductive Health Care Program. While “management of post-abortion complications” is provided, this is not to condone abortion but to promote the humane treatment of women in life-threatening situations.

It will not lead to the legalization of abortion. It is not true that all countries where contraceptive use is promoted eventually legalize abortion. Many Catholic countries criminalize abortion even as they vigorously promote contraceptive use like Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Paraguay and Ireland. The Muslim and Buddhist countries of Indonesia and Laos also promote contraceptive use yet proscribe abortion. According to studies, correct and regular use of contraceptives reduces abortion rates by as much as 85 percent and negates the need to legalize abortion.

Contraceptives do not have life-threatening side effects. Medical and scientific evidence shows that all the possible medical risks connected with contraceptives are infinitely lower than the risks of an actual pregnancy and everyday activities. The risk of dying within a year of riding a car is 1 in 5,900. The risk of dying within a year of using pills is 1 in 200,000. The risk of dying from a vasectomy is 1 in 1 million and the risk of dying from using an IUD is 1 in 10 million. The probability of dying from condom use is absolutely zero. But the risk of dying from a pregnancy is 1 in 10,000.

The bill will not promote contraceptive mentality. The bill does not prohibit pregnancy. Critics are mistaken in claiming that because contraceptives would be readily available, people would prefer to have no children at all. Couples will not stop wanting children simply because contraceptives are available. Contraceptives are used to prevent unwanted pregnancies but not to stop pregnancies altogether. Timed pregnancies are assured.

The bill does not impose a two-child policy. It does not promote a compulsory policy strictly limiting a family to two children and no punitive action shall be imposed on parents with more than two children. This number is not an imposition or is it arbitrary because results of the 2003 National Demographic and Health Survey show that the ideal of two children approximates the desired fertility of women.

Sexuality education will neither spawn “a generation of sex maniacs” nor breed a culture of promiscuity. Age-appropriate RH education promotes correct sexual values. It will not only instill consciousness of freedom of choice but also responsible exercise of one’s rights. The UN and countries which have youth sexuality education document its beneficial results: understanding of proper sexual values is promoted; early initiation into sexual relations is delayed; abstinence before marriage is encouraged; multiple-sex partners is avoided; and spread of sexually transmitted diseases is prevented.

It does not claim that family planning is the panacea for poverty. It simply recognizes the verifiable link between a huge population and poverty. Unbridled population growth stunts socioeconomic development and aggravates poverty. The connection between population and development is well-documented and empirically established.

UN Human Development Reports show that countries with higher population growth invariably score lower in human development. The Asian Development Bank in 2004 also listed a large population as one of the major causes of poverty in the country.

The National Statistics Office affirms that large families are prone to poverty with 57.3 percent of families with seven children mired in poverty while only 23.8 percent of families with two children are poor. Recent studies also show that large family size is a significant factor in keeping families poor across generations.

Family planning will not lead to a demographic winter. UP economics professors in their paper “Population and Poverty: The Real Score” declared that the threat of a so-called demographic winter in the Philippines is “greatly exaggerated, and using it as an argument against a sensible population policy is a plain and simple scare tactic.”

The National Statistical Coordinating Board projected that a replacement fertility of 2.1 children per couple could be reached only by 2040. Moreover, despite a reduced population growth rate, the effects of population momentum would continue for another 60 years by which time our total population would be 240 million.

Humanae Vitae is not an infallible doctrine. In 1963, Pope John XXIII created the Papal Commission on Birth Control to study questions on population and family planning. The Commission included ranking prelates and theologians.

Voting 69 to 10, it strongly recommended that the Church change its teaching on contraception as it concluded that “the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in today’s circumstances.”

However, it was the minority report that Pope Paul VI eventually supported and which became the basis of Humanae Vitae.

Even 40 years ago when the encyclical was issued, theologians did not generally think that it was infallible. Monsignor Fernando Lambruschini, spokesperson of the Vatican at the time of its release, said “attentive reading of the encyclical Humanae Vitae does not suggest the theological note of infallibility… It is not infallible.”

Five days after the issuance of the encyclical, a statement against it was signed by 87 Catholic theologians. It asserted that “Catholics may dissent from … noninfallible Church doctrine” and that “Catholic spouses could responsibly decide in some circumstances to use artificial contraception.”

(Rep. Edcel C. Lagman of Albay is the principal author of the proposed Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008.)

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more excerpts from the pastoral letter:

12.  What are some experiences in other countries in relation to reproductive health and related to family and life issues?

Family and Life workers and families in the Philippines, to whom this Catechism is primarily directed, could easily and clearly see the probable goals of reproductive health and rights advocates in the country, by looking at what is happening abroad.  In some countries, school clinics are required to inform parents if their child has been treated for a minor scratch; on the other hand, the same school clinics are PROHIBITED from informing parents if their child seeks treatment for abdominal pains caused by a recent abortion.  In other places, children are required to obtain parental consent for a tattoo, but not for an abortion.

A high-ranking official of a foreign country massively funding reproductive health services in the Philippines categorically stated last April that, “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion.”  A local columnist wrote in November 2008 that “In Mexico City… the long struggle for reproductive health and rights culminated in the recent passage of a law lifting all restrictions on abortion.”  Many countries all over the world and the United Nations agencies work for reproductive health and rights until they have fully facilitated access to abortion.

Underlying this concept of reproductive or sexual health and rights is a view that radically separates sexuality, procreation and the complementariness between men and women.  It is a view that identifies pleasure as the ultimate goal of sexuality and reduces procreation as a function of the health care systems.  It also implies that men and women relate in temporary and modifiable unions that are a far cry from the beauty of conjugal love that is fully human, total, faithful, exclusive and open to life.

Men and women are persons before all else, and for this reason sexual behavior cannot be used only for pleasure.  Otherwise it would mean using a person simply as an object.



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and this, from a blogger:

House Bill 96 or the Reproductive Health Bill and some suspicious provisions  

I read House Bill 96 or " An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population and Development and for Other Purposes" filed by Congressman Edcel Lagman.  The bill's rationale is note-worthy of support. The bill, it seems, is all about informed choice.

What I find rather suspicious is the provision on Section 7 which provides for all accredited health facilities to provide a full range of modern family planning methods.  While the bill seeks to promote rights and an enabling environment to exercise those rights, why propose that government buy these "modern family planning methods" only and not include natural family planning methods? 

I find a provision also expressed in Section 9 to be that of the benefit of manufacturers of contraceptives.  These provisions should not be included in the bill because though government has the right to inform, it should not provide these contraceptives for free.

The government should probably encourage manufacturers of contraceptives to lower their prices instead of the State using its funds to procure all contraceptives or modern family planning methods from these manufacturers.  This will be a clear source of an anomaly since as we all know, bidding processes in our country clearly involve graft and corrupt practices.

Section 10 is also highly suspicious.  Why distribute contraceptives when it is clear in the bill that its use should only be "when needed" or "when selected or chosen by the couple.  The State does not need to distribute these contraceptives to the general population.

These contraceptives should only be given when asked by a couple, or a parent or anybody who wants to plan or rather prevent a pregnancy.

Again, Section 10 is highly suspicious because it caters to the needs of manufacturers of contraceptives.

The contentious Section 13, which mandates the compulsory teaching of sex education from Grades 5 to High school has been revised, finally. This I think, is really important.

Another highly contentious provision though, Section 18, requires that companies with more than 200 workers shall provide reproductive health services to its workers.  Or, for companies with lower than 200 workers, coordinate with clinics and hospitals.

Again, the bill's core promise is simply respect the reproductive rights of Filipinos and provide for an enabling environment for its exercise.  Why would companies provide for these reproductive health services?  If its a right, then those who want to exercise such rights, should know their responsibilities of exercising those rights and one of them is clearly, being financially responsible.


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pahuway sa ko ani.  mangapo man sad ko ani usa ko mahuman.  katulgon na hinoon ko.  adto sa ko kadiyot sa mga hanggaw nga thread aron mawagtang ang duka.  

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