:: Q4 ’07 Quarterly Newsletter
Health Budget for Population Control
ALFI Quote
“Now there are those who would patrol life, not after it becomes a harvest but while it is seed in the granary. The new kind of vigilance would not wait until the fruit appeared on the tree, as did Hitler and others, but would stifle the blossoms and the buds. They would take up their watch at the borderline of love and life and say, ‘They shall not pass.’ "
~ On Being Human, by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Ph.D., D.D. ~
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Despite the erroneous premise of “the inordinately high annual population growth rate of 2.36 percent,” said to be reported by the National Statistics Office, the one-track idea on the need to “contain” such growth, the House of Representatives has increased the allotted Budget for reproductive health and family planning to P2 billion from an original allotment of P180 million. This is based on the observation that the rate “has an adverse impact on the principal indicators of human development like health care, quality education, food security, employment, mass housing and the environment.”
The amount allocated for this purpose will be used for the “conduct of nationwide educational campaign and seminars as well as the procurement of modern natural and artificial reproductive health products for the government to create an enabling environment for couples and women to make an informed choice regarding the family planning method best suited to individual needs, personal convictions, and religious belief.”
A full 10 percent of the total Department of Health Budget has been allotted for the express purpose of limiting population growth, with a sop to including “natural methods” together with artificial methods. As the former would hardly cost anything, it is obvious that the proposed budget allocation is intended for the purchase of and distribution of contraceptives, including abortifacients. The proposed “education program” can at best be described as “brain washing”, with a view to making a choice for limiting family size as the right and patriotic options for individuals and the nation.
Anti-lifers have indeed found more than one way to skin the cat.
Holy Father Says That Attack on the Family Undermines World Peace In his message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2008, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI stressed that the human family is a community of peace and that undermining the family is an attack on peace in the entire community.
The Holy Father defines the family as “a divine institution that stands at the foundation of life of the human person as the prototype of every social order,” and that “the family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace.” It is also “the foundation of society…because it enables its members in decisive ways to experience peace. It follows that the human community cannot do without the service provided by the family.”
Pope Benedict reminds everyone that the family is entitled to protection from society and the State, referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Consequently,” he says, “whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace.”
The Holy Father also stressed that “everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.”
There is a need for shared conviction on the “common human family” in contrast to an apparent attitude that mankind lives alongside one another merely by chance. Without the family, Pope Benedict said, “society is a mere aggregation of neighbors, not a community of brothers and sisters called to form one great family.” Thus we are all called to “have a more lively sense of belonging to one human family, and to strive to make human coexistence increasingly reflect this conviction, which is essential for the establishment of true and lasting peace.”
A Program for Social DisasterWhat Congress is so far unable to do, local governments are trying to push. One of these is the Quezon City Population and Reproductive Health Management Policy.
The provisions of the ordinance recycle anti-life bills in Congress which have so far been unable to prove the premise that our country is over-populated and hence require the control of population through the promotion of various types of contraceptives and providing access to sexual and reproductive health care methods.
By merely cloning Congressional bills that continue to meet empirically-supported arguments that over-population is not an issue and those terminologies such as “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” have been purposely made murky and misleading, local governments, such as Quezon City, are bereft of any new and positive counter-arguments to support such policy.
The provisions of this proposed city ordinance are based on false premises, motivated by external pressure, and do not address the root cause of Philippine poverty nor the true needs of the poor.
The following are the issues that should be addressed:
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The authentic needs of women, mothers, children and youth which, summed up, means respect and protection of the rights of parents, women, children and families according to their religious convictions and the demands of true and responsible parenthood.
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Sexuality education should be about educating the youth about the sacredness of human sexuality proper to the dignity of the human person
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The requirement to integrate access to means of population and reproductive health management by public and private employers violates their right to protect life and the family.
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Reduction of birth rates is wrong-headed economics as population is a positive variable in economic development; moreover statistical indicators show that Philippine population growth has been continually declining.
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The Philippine Constitution specifically provides for the protection of life and explicitly states: “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.”
Magna Carta for Women Must Truly Protect Women!ALFI views with anxiety three proposed House Bills, namely HB 164, 797, and 2111, variously referred to as the Magna Carta for Women. As with other bills that have been proposed for population control, these bills aim to get around objections to the latter, by touting the protection and rights of women.
The following are the danger signals:
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Sec. 20 of HB 164 and 2111 include “reproductive health services” among the health services to be provided by government. This apparently innocuous terms “reproductive health services,” “reproductive health,” and “reproductive rights” have been used by supporters of abortion in many countries as the “right NOT to reproduce. Contraception and abortion are thus framed as “human rights” of women. Thus childbearing is lumped together with other forms of discrimination and problems such as violence against women, lack of representation in political decision-making, unemployment, etc.
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Similarly, references to “family planning” in the same sections lead to the adoption of artificial means of contraception, with all the consequences of a society that will result in too few people contributing to social security to support the aged. Needless to say, this will result in a crisis in the provision of pension benefits.
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The penal sanctions provided for in Sec. 72 are superfluous because there are already existing laws which sanction offenses against women, such as R.A. No. 9208 (Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003), R.A. No. 9562 (Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act) and R.A. No.8353 (Anti Rape Law of 1987). Morever, as the Section is framed, it is subject to interpretation and tends to penalize those who simply disagree.
While the inclusion of statements found in HB 797 that “in all cases the rights of the children is paramount,” is laudable (actually a motherhood statement), the proposed Magna Carta for Women tends to support an ideological agenda that women and men must constantly be in a titanic struggle for power. This is a misunderstanding of the complementary roles of men and women which are basic to their individual dignity – “God created humankind in his image; in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen.1:26). Such a “power struggle” will in the end wreak havoc to the Filipino family.
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