Friday, July 25, 2008 Wenceslao: Continuing debate By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
THE debate on the controversial reproductive health bill continues, resurrecting old arguments. This is not the only contentious issue hereabouts, though. Wait until the plan by some lawmakers to re-introduce the death penalty is tackled.
On population control, here’s reader Ricky Anton (eaglefly23@yahoo. com) and my response:
“The Philippines is a market-based economy. Prices of goods and services are set by the market. Wages are low because the value of goods and services are low. Also, wages are low and will not go up until everybody is employed (law of supply and demand: there are too many people in the labor market).”
The number of unemployed is only one of the reasons, a minor one at that, why wages of workers in the country are low. Salaries, so too the number of the unemployed, are dependent on the overall health of a “market-based” economy. And population is not to blame for our current economic woes; economic managers (not the unemployed) are.
“A good government should have a population control program so that growth in resources can keep pace with population growth. What we see now is an imbalance….”
I agree. But the current debate is not about whether a population control program should be in place in the country or not but on how this should be implemented. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, I understand, is promoting natural family planning method as opposed to the use of contraceptives promoted by the government.
“The ones who have large families are the ones who can least afford (to support them)…One of our former maids had 12 children. (She got pregnant) almost every year because the husband did not want birth control. (The wife who was) once beautiful is now thin, gaunt, and has lost most of her teeth (all her calcium going to babies). None of the children went beyond elementary grades. There were not enough resources to go around.”
It is not mere accident that the poor are usually the ones with big families. In a way, this shows that the best population control program is improving the quality of life of the people. Those who are enlightened and have access to the various methods of limiting the number of children in a family are the economically well-off.
“The Church claims to be pro-life, but it is not, what with its current stand on population control. What is really pro-life?
Allowing people to have many babies who end up dying, abused, hungry, uneducated? The Church espouses natural means of birth control, but we all know it doesn't work.”
I am not with any pro-life group, so I cannot speak for pro-lifers. But in fairness to the Church, I don’t think it deserves the condemnation for its stance on population control. The Church and pro-life groups have the same love of life as those promoting population control through contraceptives. They just differ in the means of promoting that love.
No, I am not saying I am against the “Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development” (whew!). That is subject of a separate column altogether.
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
