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Miriam asks Catholic Church to stop opposing RH bill


Wearing a purple ensemble as it is the color symbol of reproductive health (RH) advocates, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Monday appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to stop opposing the controversial RH bill. "I very humbly appeal to Church authorities to emphasize strong leadership on moral issues such as war and peace, poverty, and corruption in government, instead of a non-issue like the RH Act," Santiago said during her sponsorship speech for Senate Bill No.2865 or "The Reproductive Health Act of 2011." SB 2865 is a consolidated version of Santiago's Senate bill 2378, Sen. Panfilo Lacson's SB 2738 and Sen. Pia Cayetano's Senate resolution 238. The Senate has yet to begin plenary debates, while the House since the last session has already been engaged in increasingly acrimonious exchanges on its RH bill. The Reproductive Health Act of 2011 (SB 2865) states that the government will provide universal access to medically safe, legal, affordable, and quality reproductive health services, methods, and devices. The bill promotes both natural and artificial methods of family planning. The Catholic Church is opposing the bill because according to official church teachings, only natural methods of family planning are accepted. Santiago countered that the teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception is one of the reasons why its authority has weakened over the years. She noted the Catholic Church was the only major religion in the country that was against the RH bill. Santiago said the Iglesia ni Cristo, Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, and Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches have officially endorsed the measure. Islamic clerics, on the other hand, have reportedly supported their stand. The Philippines is one of six Catholic countries out of the 48 countries profiled by the United Nations Population Fund which does not have an RH law, the senator added. Liberation theology Based on liberation theology, Santiago also said the Church will be standing up against injustice if it supports the RH bill which she described as "pro-poor." "The first step in abolishing injustice is to recognize how much the Church itself is tied to the unjust system that oppresses the very poor. RH is available to the rich, why should it not be made available to the very poor?" she said. "The RH Act is a result of the deepened sense of history among Catholics. Many of us Catholics are now more aware that our Church authorities made wrong decisions in the past. To our mind, those errors show that certain teachings should only be relative to their own times, and not permanent for all times," she said. Following one's "conscience" Santiago also said there are several religious texts which advise Catholics to follow his or her "conscience". "Conscience is inviolable, and the individual Catholic has a right to follow her own conscience, even when it is erroneous. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience," she said. Choosing between life and death Meanwhile, an earlier pastoral statement of Catholic bishops said, "We are at a crossroads as a nation. Before us are several versions of a proposed bill, the Reproductive Health bill or sanitized as a Responsible Parenthood bill. This proposed bill in all its versions calls us to make a moral choice: to choose life or to choose death." On January 30 this year, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released the pastoral letter,"Choosing Life, Rejecting the RH Bill," that compares their fight against the RH bill to their historic role in the EDSA Revolution. "Twenty five years ago in 1986 [during the EDSA Revolution], we Catholic Bishops made a prophetic moral judgment on political leadership. With this prophetic declaration we believe that we somehow significantly helped open the door for EDSA I and a window of political integrity," the CBCP said. "Human life is the most sacred physical gift with which God, the author of life, endows a human being. Placing artificial obstacles to prevent human life from being formed and being born most certainly contradicts this fundamental truth of human life," it said. "Advocates contend that the RH bill promotes reproductive health. The RH Bill certainly does not. It does not protect the health of the sacred human life that is being formed or born. The very name “contraceptive" already reveals the anti-life nature of the means that the RH bill promotes. These artificial means are fatal to human life, either preventing it from fruition or actually destroying it," the CBCP added. - VVP/HS, GMA News

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