Sunday, July 20, 2008 Lim: 4110 By Melanie T. Lim Wide Awake
HOUSE Bill 4110 is the controversial bill calling for an integrated national policy and program on reproductive health.
I will not argue with the Catholic Church who insists that 4110 is anti-life and anti-God. But I will pray that House Bill 4110 be passed because there are too many people living in poverty in our country and while some may opine that population and poverty are unrelated, all things being equal, having two children is better than having ten.
Poverty aside, there are also the issues of reproductive health and human rights.
It is inconceivable for many of us who have been raised in a patriarchal society to understand that when a woman is denied access to information and the means to plan the timing, spacing and number of children she wants to have, she has been denied basic human rights.
I don’t think it is wrong for the Catholic Church to preach what it believes is right. But I do think it is wrong for the government to TRY to be the Catholic Church. The Filipino people did not elect a government for Catholics only. As such, the Philippine government represented by the highest officer of the land should be a president for all people—not only Catholics who may believe that abstinence is the only acceptable method of birth control.
It is NOT for the government to decide what is and what is not anti-God because we all have a different concept of God. The duty of the government is to provide all women, regardless of religious affiliation or belief, information and access to means to plan births freely in the interest of reproductive health and human rights.
Let the individual decide what is and what is not anti-life. The argument as to WHEN life actually begins will probably never end, anyway. And anything other than abstinence will always be an abortifacient in the eyes of the Church.
Still, even the Vatican distributed contraceptives to nuns in the Congo in the 1960s and Senior Vatican official Msgr. Ello Sgreccia defended this action by raising the possibility of rape. And I do not condemn the Vatican for such action. I laud them.
I will not lie and say that I absolutely reject abortion. When a mother’s life is at risk, I believe that abortion is warranted. When a woman terminates a pregnancy that results from rape and/or incest, should she be condemned?
I was born and raised a Catholic. I am aware that my beliefs, most times, run contrary to those held by the Catholic Church. If I should ever change my mind, it will be because of “the fire of my questioning and the crucible of my experiences,” not because of the bullying tactics of some bishop.
God gave us free will. The bishops should grant us as much. And free will means being granted the freedom to decide for one’s self what is right or wrong without threat of censure or coercion.
God still outranks the Catholic Church and all its representatives so with all due respect for all the bishops who think bullying is the way to the kingdom of God, I will take my chances, exercise free will and risk the fires of hell in doing so.
