Saturday, August 09, 2008 Speak out: Right to decide By Gregg M. Rubio, IIE-LDM Fellow RH and Population Advocate-Cebu
I AM disturbed hearing the statements of pro-life advocates lashing at lawmakers who are behind the Reproductive Health Bill.
I am referring to the bill, which is known as, “An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development.”
While it is true that the country is facing a crisis, look who are the affected majority.
They are those who raise a big family with meager income, an income supposed to be enough for a family with one or two children but is divided by a family with five or more kids.
Government is not penalizing those who want to have dozens of children but is just looking for their welfare.
As a human being, one’s dignity and the right to decide is respected above all.
I can’t understand the motive of this group in criticizing government’s effort to push for a national policy to provide better maternal and child health and to educate the young about sex and how to be responsible parents.
Abortion is a result of unplanned pregnancy and unprotected sex. Had these young men and women knew about safe and protected sex, there abortion would not have happened.
I don’t think preventing pregnancy is abortion. What will you abort if you are not pregnant?
Many fetuses have been thrown in the backyard. What is this group doing about this? Did they mind looking for the mothers of these fetuses and counsel them?
What I see is that this group is just criticizing and showing the figure on abortion cases and persons living with HIV without doing something to help patients in pediatric wards, children who have not gone to school, children sleeping on the sidewalk, the prostitutes, etc.
The Church has threatened politicians backing this measure that they will be denied communion.
You can easily identify these politicians and government leaders but what about actual abortionists and those engaged in pre-marital sex and having multiple sex partners? Can you identify them during communion?
Are the well-publicized raids and confiscation of pornographic materials a great achievement?
Instead of teaching sex education properly and by well-trained teachers, children at their young age are learning sex by themselves through pornographic materials.
