A New York-based law firm, the Center for Reproductive Rights, has released a paper blaming the Philippines’ pro-life laws criminalizing abortion for endangering women. The group alleges that current laws force women to turn to illegal abortions that can result in complications and — in around 1000 cases annually — even death. The report basically ties the laws against abortion to what it says are human rights violations.

This is nothing new. Pro-abortion forces used the same deceptive tactic to get abortion legalized in the U.S. The deception lies on many levels, some of which we will examine.

Who’s rights?

The CRR sees access to abortion as a human right, and in their view the denial of such is effectively a violation of a woman’s rights. This claim, however, is extremely ironic because abortion is itself a violation of human rights: it is a denial of the unborn child’s right to life. Since the situation therefore involves the alleged “rights” of a woman over the right to life of an innocent child, we must ask: whatever rights a woman may have regarding choices about having children, can these be more important than the right to life itself?

Life is the most paramount right. Without it no other rights can be exercised. Therefore, even if choosing an abortion is part of a woman’s rights — as claimed by the CRR — it is necessarily a lesser right than the right to life, a right which will be denied to the victim of an abortion, the unborn child.

Human life

To get around this dilemma, many pro-abortion groups sinply deny that unboirn children are people. Doing so, however, requires ignoring basic biology and scientific evidence. Once a human egg is fertilized, it can naturally develop only into a human being. It will not become a dog or a cat. It is definitively a human being. Furthermore, science tells us that the 46 chromosomes that define a unique human individual come together at fertilization. The fertilized ovum will become only a specific human individual and not another. It is clearly then a human person.

Aside from the scientific evidence, those that deny that the unborn are people have to face another problem: if the unborn are not human, then when do they become human? Obviously, birth is just an arbitrary defining point since the transfer of location and physically parting from another person (which is what a birth involves) does not define humanity. Other changes in the embryo or fetus are also not sufficient defining points since these are simply stages in the development of a unique individual already defined at fertilization. Even born human beings are still undergoing development. An infant is physically different from an adult. Later stages in development of an already unique individual cannot therefore define the beginning of human life and personhood.

The price of “safe” abortion

There are many laws that result in difficulty and hardship. Enforcing our laws against murder, for example, often result in shootouts and great expenditures to catch murderers. Enforcing our laws against drug trafficking also results in many deaths and a host of other problems. Does that mean we should legalize murder and drug trafficking? Of course not. We should not legalize these because thyey are wrong and the hardship entailed in enforcing our laws is nothing compared to the greater evils that will befall our nation should these crimes be legalized.

In the same way, abortion is in itself a great evil, a crime against the unborn, and a violation of human rights. If indeed continued criminalization of abortion can lead to other hardships. these are little compared to the mass butchery and massive moral degradation that would occur should abortion be made legal.

We must also note that there are other ways to alleviate the alleged plight of women who find themsleves turning to abortion. There are alternatives such as adoption, pregnancy crisis centers, and even foster homes for expectant mothers. There are also other measures that can be implemented by the government that can help, as we shall see.

Poverty is the culprit

The CRR report notes that mant women turn to abortion are poor and often cite economic reasons as one reason for doing so. In one interview cited by the report, a respondent said “Only those who are better off, rich, can talk about abortion as illegal. They have no worries about raising their children. But for those who have to work daily to be able to feed their families, the poor women have limited options. They do not know what it is like to be poor and desperate,”

That fact, however, shows that the real culprit is poverty. Legalizing abortion does absolutely nothing to address this issue. If the CRR is really interested in saving women’s lives it should call for an end to indsicriminate and excessive foreign debt servicing, manimizing graft and corruption, and economic policies that promote self-sufficiency and benefit Filipinos instead of foreign interests. These will address poverty. But it seems that the CRR is more interested in eliminating persons who they see as “problems” instead of addressing the real causes.

Should difficulty of enforcement mean legalization?

The report also claims that the country’s strict abortion laws have not stopped hundreds of thousands of abortions every year. CBCP legal adviser Atty. Jo Imbong’s simple but eloquent response quoted in a story in GMANews, however, revealed the weak reasoning behind the claims of the pro-abortion group: “Kung maraming drug addicts, gawin na lang nating legal ang drug addiction? (If there are many drug addicts, does that mean we should make drug use legal?)”

Indeed, we can even be more to the point: Just because it is difficult to eliminate all cases of murder doesn’t mean we should legalize it. Abortion is, after all, the killing of the most innocent and defenseless members of our society. In case anyone misses the point, killing the innocent is murder.

Safe equals legal?

Underlying the CRR’s propaganda is an assumption that legal abortions are also safe for women who decide to have them. This ignores the fact that all abortions are unsafe for their primary victims: the unborn. It also overlooks the fact that legal abortions aren’t always medically safe for the mothers. Many “legal” in other countries abortions are actually carried out in unsanitary conditions and are every bit as dangerous to women as illegal ones.

We should also remember that women are also victims of abortion. More evidence is coming out that those who have had abortions have a higher risk of suffering miscarriages, cervical cancer, psychological problems, and even suicide.

Hard cases

The CRR wants to legalize abortion in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, where the fetus is impaired, where the pregancy is the result of rape or incest. But the Philippines does allow for measures necessary to save the mother’s life which may indirectly result in the death of the unborn baby. This is not a direct abortion and in some cases is even allowed by the Church.

As for fetal impairment, that involves a moral judgement which essentially says that a certain type of person should not be allowed to live. Following this “logic,” should we now start killing people with Down’s Syndrome? The reasoning is absurd and is not grounds for killing an innocent person.

Rape and incest are likewise not valid grounds for killing an innocent child. As Atty. Imbong pointed out, “Hindi naman kasalanan ng baby yun eh. Bakit siya papatayin? (The rape is not the baby’s fault. Why should the baby be killed?)”

By the way. although it is not emphasized in its new report, many pro-abortion groups want to allow abortion in cases where the pregnancy can cause “psychological distress.” That last term is really a catch-all phrase that can mean just about anything. It is used to disguise the real objective, which is abortion on demand, for any reason. Abortion is seen by these people as a right, not as the violation of human rights (of the unborn) that it really is.

Reproductive health and abortion linked

The report and its accompanying call for legalization of abortion exposes the hidden agenda behind the “reproductive health” propaganda to which our people have been subjected lately. Contraception, population control, and contraceptive sex education are actually closely linled to abortion. They feed on each other and together make up a very profitable billion dollar industry!

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly stated that, in the Obama administration’s view, reproductive health includes access to abortion. All the elements of the reproductive health agenda — abortion, population control, contraception, promotion of so-called sexaul freedom (meaning casual sex without responsibility) and sex education taught apart from values, form a single discriminatory, eugenics-based worldview that sees pregnancy, children, and population growth in the Third World as a threat that must be contained.

It is not coincidental that all this dovetails neatly with the declassified 1974 U.S. government document, National Security Study Memorandum 200. This document lists the Philippines as part of a group of countries whose growing population, which would eventually lead to  prosperity, would threaten U.S. overseas economic interests and security. The document recommended the imposition of radical population control using United Nations aid programs.

Garapalan na!

The cat is out of the bag. Not content with imposing dehumanizing forms of sex education, contraception, and population control, pro-RH groups now want to legalize the murder of the innocent.

I wonder what the proponents of the RH/Abortion Bill like Edcel Lagman, Risa Hontiveros, and Jannette Garin — who all claim to be anti-abortion — have to say to this. If they keep quiet then it’s pretty obvious that they too are part of this deadly agenda.

(Note: This article previously appeared on my blog at: http://mamador.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/abortion-reproductive-rights-hoax/)

http://www.phnix.net/Position_Paper_Against_HB_5043.pdf

We, concerned alumni of Catholic Universities, have united to express our stand against the anti-life, abortion-promoting Reproductive Health Bill authored by Edcel Lagman et al, now also known as HB (House Bill) 5043.

As graduates of Catholic universities well-known for their spiritual and moral values and academic excellence, we are also deeply dismayed that certain faculty members in some of our own respective alma maters have aired support for the said Bill despite the clear guidelines of our Catholic Faith.

We have therefore chosen to release this position paper in response to the confusion and scandal caused by the actions of those who have made the false claim that one can support HB 5043 and still be consistent with the teachings of our Faith.

HB 5043 uses wrong means to achieve questionable ends

Not all means to an end are justified. HB 5043′s supporters may think it has admirable, good ends, such as lowering the incidence of “unwanted” pregnancies, abortion, maternal death, and poverty, but they are mistaken. HB 5043 will not achieve these; and even if it could, there are more acceptable — and more effective — means of achieving these ends.

HB 5043 has provisions that will have morally questionable consequences. Some of these are as follows.

HB 5043 promotes abortion through abortifacients

The proponents of HB 5043 have ignored the fact that it promotes abortifacient contraceptives. The Position Paper of the 14 Ateneo faculty members, for example, dismisses this possibility, assuming that health authorities have declared modern contraceptives as non-abortifacient. Yet many studies show that such a dismissal is unjustified, and that these contraceptives can prevent the implantation of a newly- conceived human being.[1]

We also note that other contraceptives, like the IUD, are even more abortifacient than oral contraceptives, especially when used as “emergency” contraceptives. Their abortifacient mechanism of action is well-known and documented.[2]

Any contraceptive that prevents the fertilized egg from implanting, or otherwise causing it to be eventually destroyed, is an abortifacient. HB 5043, however, explicitly promotes and funds such abortifacients.[3]

It may be argued that the abortifacient mechanism of some oral contraceptives has not been conclusively proven to occur in human beings, or that if it does occur then this occurrence is very rare. To the first argument we would reply that even if there really were any doubt that a contraceptive is abortifacient, the grave stakes involved (the death of a human being) means that the burden of proof is on those who would deny that these are abortifacients. In other words, they must prove that these contraceptives are in fact non-abortifacient. Until such a conclusive determination is achieved we must err on the side of caution and not place the lives of the unborn at risk.

We also note that this imperative to avoid the questionable methods promoted by HB 5043 becomes especially more compelling since there is a safe, modern, and effective alternative: Natural Family Planning.

HB 5043 violates explicit Catholic teaching

Catholic doctrine has always held human life begins at conception. The Catholic Church has also taught that artificial contraception is a grave evil for as far back as can be historically traced. The early Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Hippolytus, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, and many others all condemned contraception. The Catechism of the Catholic Church prohibits it. In the 20th century, Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae in 1968 affirmed this teaching, as did Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii decades before, in 1930. The Pontifical Council for the Family reiterated this teaching in 1997, through the document Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life.[4]

HB 5043, however explicitly promotes the use of artificial and abortifacient contraceptive methods and devices, and provides funding for their procurement and distribution. In fact, HB 5043 mandates that contraceptives shall be classified as “essential medicine”. The claim, therefore, that the Bill is pro-life and is consistent with Catholic doctrine is totally false. No Catholic can support HB 5043 without violating the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.

HB 5043 violates the Philippine Constitution

The Philippine Constitution, in Article II, Section 12, recognizes that human life must be protected from the moment of conception. It states:

“The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

An abortifacient, however, causes the eventual destruction of the fertilized egg — of newly-conceived life. HB 5043, as stated earlier, promotes and funds such abortifacients. It therefore violates the Philippine Constitution.

HB 5043 is anti-women and anti-poor

While HB 5043 claims to prevent maternal death, its supporters fail to grasp that the great majority of such deaths are caused by the lack of proper medical facilities and care. Instead of using resources on controversial contraceptive methods and services, more good will be done by using such funds for basic health care, eliminating the real cause of maternal deaths. The Bill, however, does not address this lack of basic health care services, and will allow the problem to persist while it wastes funds on abortifacients and other ineffective reproductive health measures.

HB 5043 is coercive and violates freedom of speech

Section 21 (e) of the proposed bill lists the following as a prohibited act: “Any person who maliciously engages in disinformation about the intent or provisions of this Act.” This provision is overly broad and “disinformation” could (and most probably will) be construed as prohibiting the expression of objections to the Bill, such as what we are presently doing. This provision is is obviously going to be used to suppress dissent, and is an undue restriction of freedom of speech.[5] It has no place in any of the laws of a democratic nation.

Section 17, on the other hand, mandates employers must provide such abortifacients and other contraceptives to employees. It states that, “All Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) shall provide for the free delivery by the employer of reasonable quantity of reproductive health care services, supplies and devices to all workers, more particularly women workers.” Employers, therefore, are not given any choice despite the fact that distribution of these abortifacients and contraceptives may be against their conscience.

Section 21, number 5, requires doctors and health workers to dispense such abortifacients and other artificial contraceptive devices and methods. If they refuse to do so on religious grounds, they must still refer those who want to use such abortifacients to another person who will dispense them. Conscientious objectors are thereby required to cooperate in such acts, and if they refuse, they are slapped penalties ranging from one to six months imprisonment and a fine of P10,000-P50,000! HB 5043 eliminates any choice for conscientious objectors and makes no room for their legitimate concerns.

A call for Catholic unity and fidelity to Christ

No Catholic can support HB 5043 and remain faithful to the teachings of Christ, given to the Apostles and handed down through the centuries by the Church. To claim otherwise is deceptive and involves distortions of authentic Catholic teaching and flawed reasoning, if not outright falsehood.

For these reasons, we vigorously oppose HB 5043 and call on our respective alma mater — respected Catholic institutions — to unambiguously, unequivocally and publicly take a stand against HB 5043.

We also call on all Catholic educational institutions to rigorously examine their own different situations to determine whether the education they impart to Catholic students in their charge is faithful to the Magisterium, and to take steps to correct any contradictions being taught in the name of the Church.

December 2008
In Christ,

The Signatories

Emmanuel R. Amador
Ateneo de Manila University
AB Communication Arts (1984)
AB Philosophy (1985)

Marietta M. Aguado
Xavier University (1958)
Maryknoll College (1960)
De La Salle University (2006)

Bernard Bagaman
Ateneo de Manila University
AB Communication Arts (1984)

Philip V. Beley
Ateneo de Manila University
High School (1976)

Ricardo B. Boncan
Ateneo de Manila University
Grade School (1979)
High School (1983)

Tomas Borromeo
De La Salle University (Taft)
High School (1968)

Anna Filomena V. Generoso
School of the Holy Spirit (Q.C.)
High School (1986)

Jose Miguel R. Gomez
Ateneo de Manila University
AB Interdisciplinary Studies (1983)

Antonio Carlos Palad
Angelicum School (GS)
Holy Trinity Academy
High School (1998)

Atty. Jan Ralph Y. Perez, CPA
University of San Carlos
High School (1995)
BS-Accountancy (2000)
Bachelor of Laws Batch (2005)

Endnotes

1. One such study, “Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent,”
   (http://archfami.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/9/2/126) came to the following conclusion:

   “It seems likely that for perfect use of COCs, postfertilization mechanisms would be likely to have a small but not negligible role. For POPs, COCs with lower doses of estrogen, and imperfect use of any OCs, postfertilization effects are likely to have an increased role. In any case, the medical literature does not support the hypothesis that postfertilization effects of OCs do not exist.”

2. CVS/Pharmacy (www.cvs.com), described the functions of IUDs in this manner:
   

   “IUDs are thought to prevent pregnancy by making the womb ‘unfriendly’ to sperm and eggs. Sperm is either killed, or kept from reaching and fertilizing an egg. An IUD also may keep a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb and growing into a baby.”

   Another study by Stanford JB, Mikolajczyk RT, “Mechanisms of action of intrauterine devices: update and estimation of postfertilization effects,” which appeared in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, notes:

   “There are many potential mechanisms of action for the intrauterine device (IUD), which vary by type of IUD (inert, copper, or hormonal). This paper reviews the evidence for each potential mechanism of action. On the basis of available data for fertilization rates and clinical pregnancy rates, the relative contribution of mechanisms acting before or after fertilization were quantitatively estimated. These estimates indicate that, although prefertilization effects are more prominent for the copper IUD, both prefertilization and postfertilization mechanisms of action contribute significantly to the effectiveness of all types of intrauterine devices.”

3. Section 9 of the Bill subsidizes IUD insertion, among other things. Section 10 classifies hormonal contraceptives, intrauterine devices, and injectables as “essential medicines” and subsidizes their procurement.
4. A short listing of some of these early Church Fathers, along with quotations from their writings, can be found in the January 1996 issue of This Rock magazine, published by Catholic Answers. This article may also be found online at: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/FKBCONTR.HTM The relevant sections of The Catechism of the Catholic Church are Part Three: Life in Christ, Section Two: The Ten Commandments, Chapter Two: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, Article six: The Sixth Commandment, #2351, 2352, 2363, 2366, 2369, 2370. These sections are online at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm An english version of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii may be found online at the Holy See’s website:
   http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html

   An english version of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae may be found online at the Holy See’s website:
   http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

   An english version of the Vademecum may be found online at the Holy See’s website:
   http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html

5. As Cong. Pablo John Garcia said: “Section 21 (e) is plainly stupid, placed there, I believe, by a ‘pikon’ author. RH bill proponents complain of the ‘religious pressure’ brought to bear. Section 21 (e) seeks to elevate the RH bill into a state-mandated religion.”