At the Margins
jdelima@theguidon.com
I owe significantly much of my personal convictions to the kind of education I got from my high school, known for being influenced by the Opus Dei and whose community is proud of the personal formation program as something that other schools do not offer.
Four years ago, 14 Ateneo professors released a controversial position paper in support of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill. They said that Catholics can support it in good conscience.
However, we were taught in school about why it should not be passed. It is against natural law since it advocates contraception—artificial methods which prevent the union of the sperm and the egg during sexual intercourse. We were told that this is not supposed to be the case because sex is for procreation and should be done only by spouses within the bounds of marriage.
That is why the existence of Catholics who are supporting the bill came off as peculiar to me. I thought of them as selfish individuals who did not consider the procreative purpose of sex and the moral repercussions of such a possible law.
Today, manifold tirades against the bill and its advocates have surfaced even more. The Varsitarian, the official student newspaper of the University of Santo Tomas, recently published an editorial against President Aquino’s position on responsible parenthood. The paper did so with reference to his “jesuitry,” for thanking his confessor during the SONA, and to the “jesuitic perversion” of Ateneo professors who support the RH bill, who now number at 192. At the height of the recent monsoon, netizens easily equated the heavy rains and floods to God’s wrath against the vote of Congress to terminate RH debates.
Such instances when people only resorted to ad hominems and insensitive, rather unintelligent arguments led me to revisit my anti-RH stance. Though the moralistic approach of the Church on contraception remains agreeable, I arrived at the conclusion that seeing the RH bill as merely about contraception is overly simplistic.
We were taught why the RH bill should not be passed: because we must uphold morality at all times, even if current social realities necessitate such a measure to protect women and support the poor. We say the bill is not the solution, and it will not really address the real problems of poverty and poor health. We should instead put the budget allotted for the bill in improving our hospitals and educational system. Our population growth rate has actually declined, and besides, having more people means a stronger labor force to boost our economy.
But say these to those whose wives have died for giving birth to their nth child, to the poor women whose lives are constantly threatened by unwanted pregnancies and to the malnourished and dying children bearing the brunt of the lack of an RH policy in the country—will they understand?
Maybe we should ask ourselves: do our reasons for opposing the bill address the plight of suffering families whose situations under oppressive social structures and harsh living environments are aggravated for as long as they are not given the chance to be empowered with means to improve their lives? It is difficult for me to understand why we should turn a blind eye on them.
It is correct to say that one can support the bill in good conscience—one that does not simply follow, but is ultimately formed out of thinking with, the Church.
