Bernas: My Stand on the RH Bill

by Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas SJ
From the Opinion: Sounding Board
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Published 23 May 2011 (Link here)

I HAVE been following the debates on the RH Bill not just in the recent House sessions but practically since its start. In the process, because of what I have said and written (where I have not joined the attack dogs against the RH Bill), I have been called a Judas by a high-ranking cleric, I am considered a heretic in a wealthy barangay where some members have urged that I should leave the Church (which is insane), and one of those who regularly hears my Mass in the Ateneo Chapel in Rockwell came to me disturbed by my position. I feel therefore that I owe some explanation to those who listen to me or read my writings.

First, let me start by saying that I adhere to the teaching of the Church on artificial contraception even if I am aware that the teaching on the subject is not considered infallible doctrine by those who know more theology than I do. Moreover, I am still considered a Catholic and Jesuit in good standing by my superiors, critics notwithstanding!

Second (very important for me as a student of the Constitution and of church-state relations), I am very much aware of the fact that we live in a pluralist society where various religious groups have differing beliefs about the morality of artificial contraception. But freedom of religion means more than just the freedom to believe. It also means the freedom to act or not to act according to what one believes. Hence, the state should not prevent people from practicing responsible parenthood according to their religious belief nor may churchmen compel President Aquino, by whatever means, to prevent people from acting according to their religious belief. As the “Compendium on the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church” says, “Because of its historical and cultural ties to a nation, a religious community might be given special recognition on the part of the State. Such recognition must in no way create discrimination within the civil or social order for other religious groups” and “Those responsible for government are required to interpret the common good of their country not only according to the guidelines of the majority but also according to the effective good of all the members of the community, including the minority.”

Third, I am dismayed by preachers telling parishioners that support for the RH Bill ipso facto is a serious sin or merits excommunication! I find this to be irresponsible.

Fourth, I have never held that the RH Bill is perfect. But if we have to have an RH law, I intend to contribute to its improvement as much as I can. Because of this, I and a number of my colleagues have offered ways of improving it and specifying areas that can be the subject of intelligent discussion. (Yes, there are intelligent people in our country.) For that purpose we jointly prepared and I published in my column what we called “talking points” on the bill. (Article of this here in this blog.)

Fifth, specifically I advocate removal of the provision on mandatory sexual education in public schools without the consent of parents. (I assume that those who send their children to Catholic schools accept the program of Catholic schools on the subject.) My reason for requiring the consent of parents is, among others, the constitutional provision which recognizes the sanctity of the human family and “the natural and primary right of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character.” (Article II, Section 12)

Sixth, I am pleased that the bill reiterates the prohibition of abortion as an assault against the right to life. Abortifacient pills and devices, if there are any in the market, should be banned by the Food and Drug Administration. But whether or not there are such is a question of scientific fact of which I am no judge.

Seventh, I hold that there already is abortion any time a fertilized ovum is expelled. The Constitution commands that the life of the unborn be protected “from conception.” For me this means that sacred life begins at fertilization and not at implantation.

Eighth, it has already been pointed out that the obligation of employers with regard to the sexual and reproductive health of employees is already dealt with in the Labor Code. If the provision needs improvement or nuancing, let it be done through an examination of the Labor Code provision.

Ninth, there are many valuable points in the bill’s Declaration of Policy and Guiding Principles which can serve the welfare of the nation and especially of poor women who cannot afford the cost of medical service. There are specific provisions which give substance to these good points. They should be saved.

Tenth, I hold that public money may be spent for the promotion of reproductive health in ways that do not violate the Constitution. Public money is neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Muslim or what have you and may be appropriated by Congress for the public good without violating the Constitution.

Eleventh, I leave the debate on population control to sociologists.

Finally, I am happy that the CBCP has disowned the self-destructive views of some clerics.

The RH Bill: The Philippines Under Fire

By Steven W. Mosher / 2011 (v13)

Note: This is an article forwarded and shared by credible friends who have followed the issue. Steven Mosher wrote this article. This is good reading for all. So continue the discussion: What do you think? Give the feedback. Thanks.

As I write, there is a battle royal underway in the Philippine Congress. On the one side are the Planned Parenthood types, backed by well-funded international organizations, who are attempting to ram through legislation that would cripple the Filipino birth rate. On the other side stand those who believe that the most precious resource of the Philippines is its people, and who object to the use of what some call “human pesticides” to control the Filipino population.

As you might suspect, the U.S. foreign aid establishment, emboldened by the anti-people mentality of the Obama administration, is on the wrong side of this crucial battle for Life.

The legislation in question is called ”The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health And Population And Development Act Of 2011”—a title which manages the remarkable feat of encapsulating three lies of the abortion/population control movement in the short span of a dozen words.

“Responsible Parenthood’ is shorthand for the wrongheaded notion that couples are somehow doing the world a favor by having few or no children. In fact, the opposite is true: Children are the only future a nation has. Those who are willing to provide for the future in the most fundamental way—by providing the future generation—are a national treasure. They should be praised and encouraged, not condemned and sterilized.

“Reproductive Health,” another favorite of the anti-life movement, is equally misleading. Such programs are not intended to produce health at all, but sterility. Lest you think I exaggerate, consider how the “reproductive health” of a population is defined: It is the percentage of women of childbearing age who have been sterilized or who are using so-called “modern methods of contraception.” The higher this percentage (of women who have been chemically or surgically sterilized), the greater the supposed “reproductive health” of the population is said to be. This leads to the absolutely bizarre conclusion that a population enjoying perfect “reproductive health” would not be able to reproduce at all! Why? Because every last female reproductive system would have been disabled. We should not be surprised that the same people who define pregnancy as a disease, define “reproductive health” as sterility.

Finally, the implication of “Population and Development” is that population growth constitutes an intolerable burden on the economy. But while it is true that growing populations do produce temporary scarcities of goods and services, in a free market entrepreneurs respond by innovating; they devise more efficient means of production, for example, or they find substitutes for scarce materials. At the end of the day a larger population not only produces more goods and services, they do so at a lower price. Economists have a name for this: It’s called economies of scale.

The language of the Philippine Reproductive Health Bill, as it is called for short, is just as dangerous as its name suggests. Section 20, which fixes the “ideal” family size at two children, undermines the God-given right of couples to decide for themselves the number and spacing of their children. It will give further impetus to social engineering projects, already underway in the Philippine Department of Health and other government departments, to reduce family size. In our experience at PRI, any time a government sets population targets of any kind, it leads to human rights abuses.

But this is only the beginning of the mischief. Consider Section 13, which imposes on local government officials the obligation to enforce the provisions of the Act and “give priority to family planning work”. To this China hand, this sounds an awful lot like the PRC, where local officials are under constant pressure to reduce the birth rate, and do so by resorting to forced sterilizations, forced contraceptions and, all too often, forced abortions.

Another provision which could have been taken from Beijing’s playbook is Section 15, which sets up a so-called “Mobile Health Care Service,” and details how it will operate around the country. Apparently, as is the case in China, mobile sterilization teams will be brought in to do the dirty work of population control that local physicians, nearly all Catholic, find morally objectionable.

Incredibly, the proposed law even attempts to stifle dissent by Catholics and others by prohibiting the dissemination of “malicious disinformation about the intent and provisions of this Act.” The “malicious disinformation” that the framers of the bill had in mind would presumably include—aside from my criticisms above—pointing out the simple truth that life begins at conception.

Now I know that you may find this hard to believe, but the “reproductive health” enthusiasts who support the bill deny that a woman who has conceived a child is actually pregnant. It is not until five to seven days after conception, when the developing embryo implants in the lining of the uterus, that they are finally willing to admit its existence.

In claiming that human life does not begin at conception, but at implantation, they violate not only science but common sense. But it is important to understand that they are not fools. They do not engage in this obvious subterfuge lightly, but because they believe that the very success of their population control agenda demands it.

You see, if they admit that life truly does begin at conception, then they would also have to admit that every last one of their hormonal concoctions—from pills and hormonally laced IUDs to implants and injectables—cause early-term abortions. All hormonal contraception works, at least part of the time, by preventing an already conceived baby from implanting in the uterus.

The backers of the Reproductive Health Bill lie about this, too, of course, because they know that few women would take a supposed “contraceptive” knowing that it would actually cause them to abort.

This second lie is especially important to their efforts in the Philippines, where the Constitution, in Article II Section 12, provides that “the State shall equally protect the life of … the unborn from conception.” The Philippine Congress, wanting to leave no doubt about its intentions and no room for misinterpretation, defined the word conception in medical terms, as the fertilization of the ovum. Implantation goes unmentioned

This puts the Reproductive Health Bill, which indiscriminately promotes all types of abortifacient contraceptive devices and services, on a collision course with the Philippine Constitution.

The bill’s backers, supported by foreign “experts” and driven by their anti-people agenda, hotly deny that contraceptives are human pesticides, and that their massive distribution in the Philippines will exterminate large numbers of innocent Filipino babies. But there is little doubt that, if the bill passes, and “reproductive health” becomes the order of the day in the archipelago, that millions will die.

So far, the Philippines has resisted the population control juggernaut that has crushed the populations of other Asian countries like China and Indonesia. Zoe Vidal, a Philippine bioethicist, rightly observes that in this sense the Philippines is “the last country standing.”

Let us pray, for the sake of generations of Filipino babies as yet unborn, that they shall stand fast.

An Honest Commentary on the RH Bill

‘For he is our peace’ (Eph. 2:14)
By Fr. John J. Carroll, S.J.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: May 04, 2011

Note from me: This is to further your education, so that informed, you may be able to form your conscience. Doing so, you will be able to make your own decision on the matter. It is good that you get different opinions and perspectives. I have worked with Fr. Carroll SJ in Payatas and I can attest to his holiness, sincerity and credibility.

AS I watched Christ’s faithful gather symbolically in the Upper Room on Holy Thursday, around Calvary’s cross on Good Friday, and at the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, a wave of joy flowed over me. Swept up like a chip of wood on the surface of a boiling wave by the power of the community singing, I recalled the unity in faith and hope of the millions who gathered 25 years ago at Edsa. But still there was an undercurrent of sadness, sadness due to the realization that the official Church no longer stands with a united people but with one part of a nation divided; and that the struggle is carried on, no longer in the respectful manner of the crowds at Edsa, but in an atmosphere of personal animosity and demonizing.

The sadness is made deeper by the sense that in the debate over the RH bill, the Church seems to have backed itself into a no-win situation. If the bill passes over the total opposition of the hierarchy, there will be gloating in some quarters and a sense of “Who’s afraid of the big bad Church?” If it is defeated by the opposition of the Church, I fear a powerful backlash at the Church’s “interference in politics” and “reliance on political power rather than moral suasion”—the beginnings of an anti-clericalism such as has overwhelmed formerly Catholic bastions such as Spain and Ireland.

With all due respect for the position of the Philippine bishops, I do not see that total opposition to the bill necessary, once one gets past the polemics. First of all, the bill does not legalize contraceptives; they are already legal and may be purchased in any drugstore. What the bill proposes to do—rightly or wrongly—is to subsidize the cost of contraception as well as natural family planning to the poor. Neither does the bill legalize abortion; on the contrary it reaffirms the constitutional prohibition. It is highly probable in fact that if contraceptives become more available to the poor, the scandalous number of illegal abortions performed annually will be dramatically reduced.

On the tricky scientific question whether the IUD and some contraceptive pills may prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum in the mother’s womb and so destroy a human life, the current draft of the bill passes the responsibility to the Food and Drug Administration, which should ban any such “contraceptives” from drugstores throughout the country.

On the matter of sex education in the schools, the same draft allows parents to “opt out” for their children, i.e. to have them exempted from such classes. This is an improvement, although it would seem better to allow religious schools to develop their own programs. It may be still possible to negotiate for this. There is a graded set of modules on sex and population education already available, prepared by teachers of Catholic schools under the leadership of the Office of Population Studies Foundation of the University of San Carlos, and bearing the imprimatur of Ricardo Cardinal Vidal.

Other improvements may still be possible. One might be to strengthen the “conscience clauses” protecting health workers and teachers whose religious values conflict with certain aspects of the bill. Another could be representation of religious bodies on an oversight committee to make sure that freedom of conscience is fully respected in the field.

A sticking point for many is that the bill would subsidize the distribution of contraceptives to the poor. The Catholic Church, while recognizing the fundamental moral difference between contraception and abortion, still insists that the former is wrong. It debases the most sacred act which a husband and wife can perform: cooperation with the Creator in bringing into existence a new human person destined for eternity with God. Here it would seem more consistent for the Church to initiate a vigorous program of family life and natural family planning education for its people, helping them to form their consciences and make responsible decisions on this matter, rather than trying by political means to keep them away from “temptation.”

Which brings up what to me seems to be the most important issue here, namely, the family and family values. The charge is made that the RH bill will destroy the Filipino family. On the basis of more than 25 years of pastoral and social work in Payatas, and some seven years sponsoring natural family planning programs, I can say that the family is already at great risk—and not because of contraceptives.

While the dedication of many young people—our scholars and former scholars—to helping their families, and the sacrifices that they are willing to make, are sometimes overwhelming, these are often one-parent families abandoned by the fathers who have gone on to father second and even third families. Or no-parent families abandoned by both father and mother and being raised by grandparents. Moreover, one main reason why only some 20 percent of the women who take our seminars on natural family planning actually practice it is precisely the unwillingness of the husbands to cooperate.

Our family-life seminars seem to be much appreciated. If only the effort and resources being now invested in opposition to the RH bill were being used for serious family-life education and family support services, there might be little reason to oppose the bill. And our Holy Week services might be true celebrations of unity, mutual respect and love.