I am a devoted Roman Catholic and I am for the Philippine’s Reproduction Health Bill more popularly known as the RHbill. I believe in my heart that one can be both a good Catholic Christian while promoting family planning. In my opinion, one cannot be regarded as unchristian just because of a certain choice that one he/she undertakes to improve the quality of life. I choose to side for the bill because of how obviously population explosion contributes largely to poverty among Filipinos. Poverty could become a breeding ground for anything evil.
Consider this, when an average family has more than enough children than the breadwinner can afford to feed, the most next likely thing to happen is hunger, illiteracy and the worst, crime. Let’s face it, every family has its own capability to raise a family depending on its financial capacity. Such that what is true to one family, may not hold true to the other. One family may be able to raise four children while another can only be able to raise only two depending on the situation. Raising children does not only limit to putting food on the table. It goes beyond as giving time and resources to raise him well as giving him a decent shelter provide for his/her education and giving him a quality time so, the children grow to be responsible and upright productive adults.
Reproductive health bill is about reproductive care which ensures the complete well-being of the reproductive system from its functions down to its processes. Our body is not a manufacturing machine where babies come and go. Though one goal of building a family through marriage is to pro- create, the bill helps to ensure that married couple have the freedom to decide when and how often to do so as long as they have done nothing against the law. RH bill specifically does not support abortion and that doing so remains a crime punishable by law.
Likewise, worth commendable to the RHbill is the birthing services to solve maternal deaths whose proponents covers a wide range of concerns related to mothers who are in fact seems to be the most to benefit from the bill. It covers the following: a)Information and access to natural and modern form of family planning; b)Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition; c) Promotion of breast feeding; d) Prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications; e) Adolescent and youth health; f)Prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, HIV/AIDS and STDs; g)Elimination of violence against women; h) Counseling on sexuality and sexual reproduction health; I) Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers; j) Male involvement and participation in RH; k) Prevention and treatment of infertility and; l)RH education for the youth. It is sad to know how many maternal deaths in the past could have been prevented had more Filipino women have access to reproductive health care and information. It’s quite alarming that 32% maternal deaths could have been reduced or altogether prevented had family planning been observed as 11 maternal deaths occurs daily in the Philippines while giving birth.
As a mother of two boys ages 11 and 12, I wouldn’t mind my kids getting proper sexual education in school than them getting them from their peers who might give them the wrong information. Come to think of it, what is taboo in the olden days cannot anymore be applied in this changing world. Children are naturally inquisitive, so much so, that rather than them asking questions relating to sex and sexuality from persons not in authority, might as well tell or educate them in a manner appropriate to their age.
The passing of the RHbill continues to be the center of so many debates. Philippines is a free country, so, the argument continues as long as it lasts. Meanwhile, I will continue to support the bill as I have personally witness from my own community how a once otherwise healthy woman turned into a living cadaver of a slave by an irresponsible jobless husband who got her pregnant successively one year after the other.
The same holds true with another community couple who seems to enjoy bearing children inspite of poverty and witnessing and not minding their children grow up lacking even the basic manners that eventually make them a menace to society.
The Reproductive Health Bill is about responsible parenthood.
