Arguing for life

Debate on the Reproductive Health bill continues to rage in Congress.

Rep. Pablo Garcia of Cebu’s 2nd district dropped a bombshell earlier this week, charging that  the non-government organization that includes members of the Lower House called the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development receives funds from foreign organizations based in the United States who deliberately want to put the number of Filipinos under control.

Let us for a moment leave Garcia to spar with staunch RH bill advocate Edcel Lagman and visit related realities on the ground.

Like  that other bombshell, celebrity DJ Mo Twister’s allegation that his ex-girlfriend actress Rhian Ramos, under pressure to stay relevant—read: single—in the domestic entertainment industry, had an abortion, and that he was father of the unborn child.

Or the fact that   an Internet search of  key words “Cebu,” “fetus,” “found” and “2011” will return links to a long series of news items about aborted fetuses found in Cebu this year.

Last Nov. 25, a fetus was found in a vacant lot behind the Cebu International Convention Center in Mandaue City.

Last Oct. 11, a fetus was  almost put through a shredder in the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill in Cebu City.

Last September, one fetus each was found in barangay Apas and barangay Sambag II, Cebu City. Twin fetuses were found floating in the Butuanon River last August.

The world celebrates Human Rights Day on December 10. The United Nations states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” (Article III, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Our country’s Bill of Rights states that the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from the moment of conception.

This makes us wonder why so much energy is being spent on  the Reproductive Health bill, several times resurrected in Congress, while nearly nothing has been said about Senate Bill No. 2635 or the Protection of the Unborn Child Act of 2011 that Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. authored.

There’s to much fudging among those who say that the Reproductive Health bill will promote the well-being of women. (Any doctor will acknowledge that chemical contraceptives increase a woman’s risk of contracting cancer, intra-uterine devices tear wombs and that condoms don’t  remove the risk of the spread of sexually transmitted infections; and there are “contraceptives that actually induce abortions.)

The Protection of the Unborn Child Act of 2011 is a  direct way to stem the rising tide of abortions and consequently reproductively compromised women (which RH bill advocates point to as justifications for passing that bill).

Come to think of it, we rarely hear or read reports about the arrest of abortionists. Could this be because among the abortionists are  doctors and compliant pharmacists who lead women to use  abortion-inducing drugs or abortive procedures?