Solon: Catholic Church propagating lies about birth control, family planning

MANILA, Philippines - A pro-choice senior member of the House of Representatives on Saturday accused the Catholic church of deliberately spreading “falsehoods" about the government’s consolidated bills on reproductive health and family planning. In a statement, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the author-proponent of reproductive heath bills, said he and his colleagues “do not intend to gatecrash" the July 25 prayer rally on the Filipino family, as they don’t want to be a party to “this vaudeville of misinformation." “It is, however, disheartening that those who claim to be purveyors of truth, are in fact peddling misinformation," Lagman said referring to the “Manifesto of Filipino Families." According to Lagman, the manifesto – which the Catholic Church espouses – “will only mire the faithful in ignorance and shackle our women to a life of unremitting pregnancies because it contains deliberate falsehoods." He said in the Bible, John 8:32 unequivocally states, “The truth shall set you free." “An inordinately huge population growth rate of 2.04 percent imperils family life as a ballooning population impacts adversely on health, education, food security, employment, shelter and the environment – the very essentials of sustainable family life," he said. Lagman said the “misrepresentations" are as follows: * “Congress is railroading the family planning bills. This is false. These bills have been pending in Congress for the past four Congresses. This length of time of more than one decade belies railroading. * “Laws on reproductive health and family planning eventually lead to legalization of abortion. This is completely untrue. On the contrary, a rational and comprehensive national policy on family planning, which includes contraceptive use, reduces significantly the rate of abortion as documented by international studies. Consequently, there is no need to legalize abortion if there is an increased usage of modern and effective contraceptives." “There is absolutely no truth to statements that if contraceptives are widely used, the legalization of abortion will be inevitable. There are numerous countries that allow the dissemination of information and promote the access to modern family planning methods and yet still proscribe abortion like the Catholic countries of Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay, Ireland and Malta, among others. * “A national policy on family planning will drastically reduce the population and would result in a population winter. Again, this is a false scare tactic. Despite the expected reduction in the annual population growth rate once a national policy on family planning is in place, the number of people will still continue to increase due to the dynamics of population momentum considering the number of Filipino women of reproductive age. Experts led by UP Economics professors have declared in a paper entitled “Population and Poverty: The Real Score" that given the excruciatingly slow decrease in our Total Fertility Rate, a so-called population winter will not happen in the country for “at least another 100 years. “Even with a sustained family planning program, our population will continue to increase for another 60 years, by which time our total population would have reached a staggering 240 million according to the National Statistics Coordinating Board (NSCB). * “We should pay homage to OFWs for their dollar remittances as “a payoff of high fertility in the past." This is a cockeyed view on fertility. Must we continue exporting our people as a “blessing" of a runaway population? High fertility has resulted to the absence of local employment to millions of Filipino workers who are forced to seek jobs abroad despite the hardships and loneliness of working in foreign shores, not to mention the social costs of migration, which tend to destroy the solidarity of the Filipino family. * “The side effects of contraceptive pills are life-threatening. This is incorrect. Medical science shows that the side effects of pills are minimal, if ever. Family planning saves lives. One-third of all maternal deaths can be prevented by family planning. Unwanted pregnancies are more life threatening to mothers and infants. “Medical and scientific evidence show that if we take into consideration all the possible risks connected with a modern contraceptive like pills, the medical risks associated with them are infinitely much lower than those related to an actual pregnancy and childbearing. This is an unequivocal fact." Meantime, pro-life Rep. Eduardo Zialcita of Parañaque’s first district assured the public that the pro-life caucus of the House of Representatives will continue to defend the dignity of life and family. He defended, on the other hand, the Catholic Church amid criticisms about its opposition to what it believes is pro-abortion. The bill’s authors “are painting a doom's day scenario and unnecessarily scaring the public that poverty will exacerbate if we fail to pass this." “They even go to the extent of attacking the Catholic Church for its advocacy on Pro-life and on its teachings on the Dignity of Life and preservation of the Family. We would like it known to the people that we will continue to fight against the Reproductive Health bill based on rational, constitutional and moral basis," Zialcita said. “We believe that as legislators, it is our supreme duty to protect and uphold the interest of the people in accordance with the mandate of the Constitution, and will not be beholden to small interest groups like multinational pharmaceutical companies," he added. “It is our sworn duty as legislators to promote the common good, for the benefit of the majority of the people," Zialcita said in a statement. - GMANews.TV