The joy of sex

And yet, all these must start first from a love for the church. They must come from the belief that for any human institution to survive into the future it must found itself on truth. The savior Jesus Christ said as much. This writer would quote Him if only he felt worthy. But he feels he is not.

Yet even so, watching the church from a far distance as if figuratively astride a tree just like that biblical character Christ called closer to Him, he could not help feeling a dissonance. The church must found itself on truth if it will survive. Otherwise, it will die. And so he prayed to the Savior that it will not die. But if there was any answer, it came only as a silence which told him: It is also up to you. The Church is more than stone and glass. It is more than grand vestments. It is also you and your confusion. It is especially the poorest among you, those who have no voice. To call them closer, you must first speak for them.

And so it must be said that while the church centers all its arguments against the Reproductive Health (RH) law on the concept and imagery of abortion, this is only an image such as it would confuse the poor and the gullible. Who in the Philippines feels at peace with the imagery of fetuses torn from the wombs of their mother’s? Who lives in peace with young mothers dying from sepsis following after that gruesome act? No one.

And yet, that sort of abortion has always been here. The frequency of its occurrence will not increase, it might even decrease because of the RH law. Indeed, the claim of a direct link between abortion and the RH law is a fallacy unless viewed from the singular perspective of the church.

The truer picture of abortion is the concept of a woman’s egg fertilized by a man’s sperm as it falls downwards through the woman’s uterus. Is this act of fertilization the beginning of life? There might be many fertilized eggs on this fateful journey at one time, but only one of them may attach to the walls of a woman’s womb. Is it reasonable to believe this point of attachment might be the truer beginning of life? If this act of attachment is prevented by pharmacological means, does that constitute abortion? The point is arguable either way.

But even so, after this act of attachment, the human embryo will grow in its natural course. And this life must be held sacred. Is there any argument over this issue? Not much, unless someone asks: So why does the church disallow the use of condoms in the first place? Isn’t this the whole issue really?

These are questions to put him into a spiritual bind. For then he must fall into the roots of the argument. And it is these roots that do not often see the light of day in the arguments raised by those who oppose the RH bill. These roots have to do with the sex act itself. These have to do with the church’s less talked about tenets over this act.

The only act of sex seemingly acceptable to the church if we take the issue down to its logical order is such act as would result in the natural probability of conception and birth. Any method scientific or otherwise designed to interfere with this “sacred” link between sex and its natural consequence, which is birth, is unacceptable. Any act of sex done for a purpose other than to have babies must be held suspect. Whenever the sex act is done only for the joy of it, as in to love for the joy of love, that sex act fails to meet the demands of sacred love, or if you will, sacred and acceptable sex. But is it really abortion? Is it sin?

This sinner who also loves his church even from a distance bears with him a heavy cross. Especially, if he has a worker only 30 years old and already caring for 5 children whose mother is only a young 24 year old. What can a good Catholic tell this worker if he asks for more information about vasectomy? The truth? Or what the church wants him to say?

Thus finally, the crux. For this is all a problem not of abortion or contraception but of information. Those who are better off have access to information on demand. And if statistics are any indicator they do not have as many children as the poor who only have morsels, superstitions and fallacies. They deserve more. To keep them ignorant is the worst abortion of all.

The way he thinks about it, good Catholics ought not complain about the RH law. They are better off to have a law that would relieve them of the burden of telling their workers and the poor the truth about how not to have babies unless they really want to. The RH law will not keep even a single Catholic from being a good Catholic unless that good Catholic is afraid of truth.