Godless
I have just read House Bill 5043 (more commonly known as Reproductive Health and Population Development Bill). Basically, the proposed law:
- Calls for government funding (or taxpayers money) for dissemination of information, including multi-media campaign, and government funding (tax money) for full delivery and financial coverage of artificial birth control methods services and supplies
- Require healthcare institutions, public or private, their workers, the national government and local government units, even employers to provide access to artificial birth-control methods
- Provide penalties for neglecting or not following the above-mentioned mandates
- Provide those minors with DSWD certification direct access to artificial birth control methods even without parental consent
- Afford women the right to decide to avail of artificial birth-control methods even without spousal agreement
- Require schools to provide information on artificial birth control methods as part of curriculum at least to all levels of secondary school (all high-school students)
Obviously, HB5043 is a direct affront to the Roman Catholic Church which teaches the immorality of such artificial birth-control methods. The proposed law requires a portion of your money and mine whether you believe in the law’s immorality or not to be used for artificial contraception for the poor. The proposal also requires all government officials, all hospitals and their employees, all employers, even those that are staunch catholics to provide access to artificial contraception. Well, to those people who says that the church should not meddle with government business… Hello?
Also, the proponents of the law are basically saying that artificial birth-control methods are not immoral, that is if they care about morality at all. In questions of morality therefore, should anyone believe proponent lawmakers such as Lagman and Hontiveros-Baraquel who are leaning towards the Godless left or should we believe the church who devotes time to study and answer questions on morality?
Amazingly, with HB5043, poor people may be provided with artificial birth-control methods services and pills for free when the person is perfectly healthy, but not with other medicine when the same person is sick. HB5043 thought that your birth-control pill is essential medicine while your anti-diabetes drug is perhaps not too much essential. If one wants tubal ligation or vasectomy done, you can have it absolutely for free while you might not have your appendectomy for the same privilege. f you do not want to have babies, the government is required to provide you with all the services, supplies and equipment you need to avoid having a baby. But if you do not have a baby, would want a baby but cannot conceive, sorry the government has no mandate to help you.
Meanwhile, the bill did not care to define abortifacients. Although it says it does not change the status of abortion as an illegal act, it did not say when an act is abortion and when it is not. The issue as to when life begins, from fertilization or ovulation is not tackled. Perhaps, for the bill’s proponents, these minor details are not essential to know!?
The bill profusely contrasts itself. Perhaps, to promote responsible parenthood, the bill proposes direct access of all those minors certified by the DSWD as having been abused, to artificial post-sex birth-control. Meanwhile, perhaps to promote partnership between spouses, the wife is given the right to gain access to the same artificial methods even without spousal agreement. I heard from the radio early today one of the law’s proponents saying that this bill is designed purely for couples and their parental responsibility. Could that be the reason why schools are required to teach young children about artificial contraception?
I cannot fathom how promoting parental responsibility and financing everyone’s freedom to have sex irresponsibly could mix together. Surely, the proposed law spreads around nice words such as responsibility, healthcare, freedom, choice, development, rights, equality, couples, etc. Yet, it is nothing but an attempt to remove God from our government and society.
posted by Sef @ 2:29 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
To those of us who are staunchly against abortion, we are at our wits' end regarding the more than 500,000 abortions that occur in our country. Clearly, our present system is not working and we need to find other solutions. It is no longer enough to simply disparage bills that attempt to address this horrible reality. Working closely with poor people will make you aware about the tragic lack of education and enlightenment prevailing among these unfortunate Filipinos.
If we are serious in our desire to spread the truth, we are not doing a good job.
"In questions of morality therefore, should anyone believe proponent lawmakers such as Lagman and Hontiveros-Baraquel who are leaning towards the Godless left or should we believe the church who devotes time to study and answer questions on morality?"
I think you make a lot of wrong assumptions in this section alone: first, the false dichotomy of "godless=immoral" and "church=moral". That's simply not true. The Church has no monopoly on morality - in fact, the objections to the Church's actions so far are predicated on moral grounds too -
- it's not right for the Church to stand in the way of crucial medical services to those who need it, and as Dr. Bautista's experience in the matter may bear out, contraception is a crucial medical service to some of our less fortunate fellow Filipinos.
- It's not right for the Church to dictate its peculiar moral stance on a republican secular nation as a whole.
- It's not right for an unelected hierarchy to use its considerable resources to frustrate the legislative process.
On to your other points - HB4053 does not address appendectomies and anti-diabetes pills, not because they are not considered a priority by the government, but because other initiatives are already in place to provide them free or at lower cost to indigents. What do you think Philhealth and PITC are for? However, reproductive health has been absolutely ignored in the past. HB5043 seeks to address that.
Finally - I totally disagree that the bill "finances everybody's freedom to have sex responsibly". The Church seems to believe that the bill is all about condoms and abortions - when it covers so much more than that!
Simply put - the bill addresses the Filipino's need to manage fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. It places the tools that address this need in the hands of those who ask for it, and it frees doctors to prescribe them without undue hindrance from law or church. It doesn't allow abortions, and it doesn't force people if they don't want to.
Pare, we're not a Catholic confessional state anymore. The Church stand is anti-democratic and opposed to reality - just ask Dr. Bautista. Just ask me - I'm going to be a father in a week's time and I understand how painful these issues of fertility and pregnancy are (nowhere near as well as my wife, of course).
Indeed Dr. Bautista, the lack of education is our problem. We should therefore actively support all movements that promote the proper education of our people.
Meanwhile, since the majority of our people get most of their education from mass media, I also would like to take the latter to task on the problems besetting our country. Had mass media been doing their job, there would have been no need to discuss this issue.
Hi Mickey,
Indeed you must have studied a whole lot about morality enough to justify where you stand on. But hey, even murderers could easily point to morality as their reason to commit their crime. So, as far as your logic is concerned, who draws the line? Yourself?
Meanwhile, to call the church's moral stance peculiar is somewhat too impudent. Didn't it occur to you that your stance, to other people, could have been more peculiar? Believe me, if the proponents just admit that they are atheist, the story would have ended long ago. The only reason it is still being contested is because they are using the "moral grounds" play.
And you got it entirely wrong. It is not the church who is imposing its stance on the nation, it is HB5043 imposing itself on the church and the faithful. It is HB5043 who is stepping on the church and not the other way around. The church is merely saying ouch and making sure HB5043 doesn't do it again. And the church has the right to do so.
And when you mentioned about Philhealth and PITC, it seems you suddenly have quite a belief on the capabilities of those agencies. Didn't it occur to you that while our congress is tackling HB5043 and while the proponents are trying to get public funds for drugs for perfectly healthy people, other people are dying from simple avoidable diseases due to lack of very simple medicine?
Meanwhile, just make sure Dr. Bautista agrees with you. I thought I know him differently than how you paint his reasoning would be.
And then you said the bill covers more than pills and abortion. Corny mo pare... Alam naman natin, yun lang ang gist, filler lang yung iba. Obvious naman di ba?
With all the loopholes on the bill itself, Pare, even if I have the same atheistic reasoning as yours, I would have rejected it.
first of all the title of this post is misleading, its obvious you had to put the word "god" in there to attract readers, I guess putting "Artifical Birth Control Law" isn't scandalous enough.
secondly, why does most catholic (not everyone) tend to associate themselves (and their religion) to constitutional policies as if that ONLY affects them, just because the majority of the people living in this country are born catholics doesn't give the assumption that all of them are in favor of their so-called churche's POV, our laws are FOR pinoys NOT pinoy-Catholics.
Hi Tracy,
I am not as internet savvy as you are for I do not know that putting in "god" in my title could invite more readers. Or could it? Perhaps I should try that again next time;)
It seems you have not read through my post though. My conclusion is simple and direct:
"...it (HB5043) is nothing but an attempt to remove God from our government and society."
And there is no point in saying "not all of them (Catholics) are in favor of their.. church's POV". Remember that many Christians do not even follow the ten commandments.
You're obviously stuck in the mindset that the Church can do no wrong. I'll leave you to it, then.
Let me just conclude by saying that you've failed to address any of the points I've mentioned -
- you simply accuse the bill proponents of atheism (unproven - and even if it were true, it does nothing to rebut or undermine Lagman et al's point);
- you make HB4053 to be an enormous imposition on Filipinos, leaving aside the fact that unelected bishops' pressure on duly elected officials is by far the more monstrous imposition, affecting as it does non-Catholics as well as Catholics;
- you downplay the effectivity of Philhealth and PITC, when curiously you have an overblown idea of what a similarly government-funded reproductive health program can accomplish;
- you claim all the other components of the bill are secondary to abortion and contraception ("yun lang ang gist, filler lang yung iba").
- finally, you claim this is all about "removing God from our government and society", and pay no attention at all to the actual needs that this Bill addresses. (Talk about missing the point in a huge way.)
In other words - you've simply taken Church talking points at face value and rejected the other side out of hand.
You can't even acknowledge that the other side may have a good reason for proposing a government reproductive health program - Roma locuta est, causa finita est, so what's the point, right?
You haven't analyzed at all, you've just taken a side, repeated their talking points, and hoped that blind faith would see you through where reason couldn't take you far enough.
You know I used to believe you were capable of independent analysis. I'm actually sorry to be proven wrong.
Hi Micketymoc,
Since you cannot understand or accept my point, I must be pointless. And since I have not the same reasoning as yours, I must be incapable of doing independent analysis.
Hello?
shet. ang hahabang usapan! kasi naman, to the author of this post,, don't include the church in politics, its senseless kasi, wala silang kwenta as a whole as defined naman sa so-called "Separation of the Church and the State",.. ang linaw linaw,, kung napunta sa kanila (the church) ung decision, e di manipulation happens, walang freedom ang ibang pipz with other religion,, leading to nondemocracy,, kaya nga democratic tayo eh,, actually, hindi naman atheist ung mga politicians,, they just talk like one kasi ayaw nilang magkaroon ng favoritism on the part of catholics vs noncatholics... many people fought for that a long time ago,, at ayun,,
saka masyado kang mafeeling, ni hindi mo nagegetsing ung mga sinasabi ng critics mo, you go directly to your stand,, you're like: "ah basta, eto ang alam ko", eh wala namang point, puro kadugyotan lang,,
--kung ayaw mo ng stressful comments, dapat wag ka magpost ng topics na hindi sakop ng utak mo. patnubayan ka nawa ng Diyos mong kung saan saan napapadpad! at sana magaral kang mabuti gaya ni micketymoc,, basta ako,, nagets ko point nya,, shut up na ko,, ikaw, walang kwenta point mo, walang basis, dead end, you should have killed yourself by now, or kaya idelete mo tong kabobohang post na toh,,
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