Truth needed in RH bill debate

The Lower House will decide whether or not to wrap up debate on the Reproductive Health bill tomorrow.

The congressmen need to be truthful in determining whether or not the policies outlined in the bill are necessary, beneficial and practicable.

It has been bandied about that every day, an average of 11 Filipino mothers die in labor.

Yet this data may be obsolete, as there are reports by local and international organizations showing that the Philippines is better in reducing maternal mortality rates than countries like Germany or Israel.

If we have been doing this, then it can only be through ways of taking care of mothers’ reproductive health even without the bill.

All sectors need to come together to distill the best practices in maternal health care if the problem is keeping mothers safe.

Legislation can be retooled in tandem with the bill for the protection of unborn babies.

Advocates of the bill say the Philippines is overpopulated, but who is to scientifically determine overpopulation?

Government data shows that our population growth rate has been slowing down, and as it is, our population right now is an asset, keeping the economy afloat at a time when there is uncertainty in other nations.

Do we really want to protect the health of our women?

If we do, our congressmen should do something to address the promotion of chemical contraceptives, many of which have been counted as the worst cancer-causing ones by no less than the World Health Organization.

Wouldn’t they be applying a double standard, fighting against tobacco only to let another disease vector hold sway in our land?

And what of the abortifacient effects of contraceptives? Surely lawmakers will say they will be sifting the harmful from the harmless contraceptives, but we all know as a rule that tinkering with nature has never been known to have no harmful consequences. If we are so adamant about protecting our ecology the better to be protected from disaster, why is it suddenly so easy to tinker with the anatomy of a woman without expecting any consequence?

What of the multinational lobby groups who reportedly fund the backers of the RH bill? Are we now to bow to the pressure of moneyed groups, placing under their diktat our sovereignty and right to self-determination? The truth about these lobby groups and their real intentions need to be probed and exposed in Congress.