Reply to Dr. Villegas

I promised a reply to Dr. Bernardo Villegas’ view on the use of contraceptives. Here is one from my friend, Paul. He wrote that it is not correct to link abortion, divorce, single mothers and mentally unbalanced adolescents to the general use of contraceptives. He said that in many European countries after WWII what we called a “sexual revolution” among the young people, which was part of profound changes in the society, were directed towards the general objective of personal freedom, individuality, independent living and self-realization. At that time, he observed that the pre-war patriarchal family structures were broken up and widely replaced by individual lifestyles which included, particularly for women, to pursue their own studies and careers, to earn their own salaries and become independent from hubbies as their bread-earners, waiting for them at home by the range, including making a decision when to get pregnant.

About legislating abortion, Paul said that in many European countries the legislation about abortion was a subject of fierce discussion and that opinions ranged from strict no’s to exceptions granted for medical or social reasons to general allowance up to three months of pregnancy and that because of these different views, legislation on abortion varies significantly among European countries. He added that in a society formed by  many independent individuals, divorce is properly regulated by law, and single mothers are accepted members of the society, irrespective of religion. Munich, for instance, is predominantly Roman Catholic.

Paul also said that in quoting George Akerlof, Dr. Villegas forgot to mention that Akerlof did not recommend legal restrictions on either abortion or the availability of contraceptives. And your conclusion is wrong and that singles, out of wedlock children, single parents, divorce, etc., are consequences of fundamental changes in European and U.S. American societies toward the end of the 20th century, and certainly have not much correlation to the condom, which in various forms has been used since 400 years and in its modern form since the 19th century.

Paul admitted that the present European and American societies have created their own problems, one of which is diminishing population growth. He mentioned Germany, for instance, where too many young women prefer to pursue their studies and, later, careers on their way of “self-realization” and to avoid having children, which results in an average birth rate of 1.4 children per woman when there should be a minimum of two to maintain the German population. He also admitted that along with the fact that people grow significantly older due to medical progress, two major problems arose: (1) insufficient pension funds for a growing number of (old-age) retirees financed by a lesser and lesser workforce will become a big problem and (2) a shrinking population.

Are these results supportive of the views of Dr. Villegas concerning the positive aspects of population growth? Paul asked. Yes, according to Paul, if we promote a healthy growth of population based on a plan that is affordable for the parents. He cited his grandfather who had a steady job with the railways while also farming on the side and raising pigs, goats and chicken on the land he owned with a big and solid house. With this, Paul mused, he could afford to send all his children to school while his grandmother stayed home—a common feature in a rural society in the late 19th and early 20th century. Under these conditions, Paul said that one can let a family grow. He did not actually say it but it is easy to see what Paul meant with respect to many of our poor people in the country who do not have secure jobs or properties but produce so many children just the same they could hardly provide.

Dr. Villegas mentioned many government programs to help improve the well-being of our people without reducing population growth such as agricultural and rural development, nurturing of small- and medium-scale enterprises, authentic agrarian reform backed up by efficient infrastructures in the countryside, micro-credit and micro-enterprise development, improving the quality of basic education for the poor, providing technical skills to the out-of-school youth, partnering with the private sector in implementing corporate social responsibility, and many others things were essentially provided for my grandfather. Paul asked if these are really available to our people. He then referred to Dr. Arsenio Balicasan for an answer whose studies also points to the need to control population growth to help our people move out of poverty.

Paul’s response to Dr. Villegas was quite long, so to conclude, let me just give you Paul’s view on the RH bill.

“You know, the crux of your argument is that you call population growth what is actually rampant population overgrowth at the expense of the poor. It is a Roman Catholic doctrine at the expense of the poor. Let us assume that the RH bill will indeed become law. This would give the poor some means to do some responsible family planning while waiting for other betterment. Instead of seven, eight, nine, ten and more children they cannot afford they might have just two, three, four, or five. But your problem is that you don’t trust your own countrymen. You call the use of contraceptives for birth control a solution that may have a short-term antipoverty impact but would lead to the social and moral decay of society. You don’t give your countrymen the credit that they would handle contraceptives in a responsible manner. You don’t believe that your countrymen are good Catholics aware of the Church doctrines, using contraceptives with a sense of proportion but instead you rather foresee and predict that these innocent condoms will cause the Filipino society going socially and morally down the gutter.”