No to RH Bill (Clara Manansala's Reaction to RH Bill)

RH Bill (Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008) or the House Bill No. 5043 is an act providing for a national policy on reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development, and for other purposes.

According to one blog, the RH Bill hopes to give the people the right to choose. To choose to protect oneself from AIDS, from STDs, to have a better quality of life for the children they already have, among other things. The RH Bill also addresses gender equality, a right many women do not enjoy in this country.

 

And for those who are in favor of the RH Bill, they believe that the issues regarding the RH bill cannot be solve if we rely our defenses on religion, simply because religion is a very sensitive and personal thing, a matter of faith. No religion has the monopoly of truths. As human beings aspiring to attain our own divinities, they said that we must continue to endeavor to learn from every resource available, and we must think outside the box if we want to learn more. Therefore, the issues of the RH Bill must be approached using “reason”, and not religion.

 

Also, some of the supporters of the bill wanted the Catholic Church to leave the issue. They said that it is about time that the Roman Catholic Church should stay out of politics.

However, for those who are against the RH Bill, they argue that sex must only be used for procreation and that preventing life is immoral.

 

Also, the oppositions believe that the RH Bill will only result in big profits for foreign drug manufacturers. These foreign companies, with the help of supportive legislators, will change the way we raise our children and our families by passing the bill into law.

 

Personally, I’m against the RH Bill. I was born Catholic, baptized Catholic, and confirmed Catholic. Basically, I’m raised on the Catholic way. I believe that the advocates of the bill were attacking the sacredness of life. And for those who are attacking the Catholic Church, YOU SHOULD THINK FIRST! Because the bishops and the priests are not really against population control if the sanctity of human life is protected.

 

Also, the CBCP endorsed natural family planning as one such birth control method, and they further recommended that government funding on contraceptives be directed towards anti-poverty, anti-hunger, and educational projects. (CBCPNews)

 

 

And even Pope Benedict XVI said that he “commends the Church in the Philippines for seeking to play its part in support of human life from conception until natural death, and in defense of the integrity of marriage and the family. In these areas you are promoting truths about the human person and about society which arise not only from divine revelation but also from the natural law, an order which is accessible to human reason and thus provides a basis for dialogue and deeper discernment on the part of all people of good will.”

 

Furthermore, I’m against the ideas of giving sex lessons in school, and allowing the teenage children (ages 12 to 17) to hunger for "satisfying sex" by using condoms and contraceptives--because the bill, if it becomes law, will give them that right to have "satisfying sex" anytime they want to, and the law forbids the parents to stop them.