Updates

RH bill sponsors questioned on birth control supplies as “essential medicines”

MANILA, September 14, 2011–If contraceptives are only meant for birth control, then why are they tagged as “essential medicines” under the RH bill?

Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile asked this and other questions as the Senate resumed the period of interpellation for the controversial “reproductive health” (RH) bill Tuesday.

Enrile cited Section 9 of Senate Bill No. 2865 titled “An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population and Development,” which orders the inclusion of hormonal contraceptives, intrauterine devices, injectables, and “other safe, legal and effective family planning products and supplies” in the National Drug Formulary.

“These products and supplies shall also be included in the regular purchase of essential medicines and supplies of all national and local hospitals, provincial, city, and municipal health offices, including rural health units,” the Senate version of the RH bill states.


Full story

Well-Funded Pro-Abortion Forces vs. the Pro-Life Philippines

— Posted by John (September 14, 2011 at 12:12 pm)

For many years, pro-abortion advocates in the Western world have tried, and failed, to get the Philippines to pass the so-called Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

If passed, the RH bill would, among other things, massively expand the presence of contraception and force medical professionals and businesses to provide them in spite of any conscientious objections. In this largely Catholic country, that hasn’t gone over well, and that’s why Filipinos continue to overwhelmingly oppose it.

Full story

US pro-lifer urges Filipinos to value family, faith

MANILA, September 13, 2011 – “Even those of us in the supposedly ‘developed’ world are happier if we have intact families with all of the children with whom we are blessed, and if we keep faith and family and community close to our hearts,” said Stephen Phelan, Communications Director of Human Life International (HLI), the world’s largest international pro-life organization.

“If Filipinos want to be happy and not just more ‘accepted’ by people who think there are too many Filipinos for their comfort, then they will continue to value faith, life and family,” he added.

“They will embrace authentic human development programs that lead toward independence – not more dependence on foreign dollars.”


Recent revelations

Phelan was referring to recent news reports that had even reached international media about billions of dollars being poured into the Philippines for the implementation of family planning programs.

Full story





RH bill about population control, not health–Enrile

By Cathy Yamsuan
Philippine Daily Inquirer

3:13 am | Monday, September 12th, 2011

 7 share408  394

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has warned that proponents of the reproductive health (RH) bill have “cleverly” packaged it as a health measure when it is clearly about population control.

“RH is a deception. They are calling it a health bill when health should discuss sickness and medicines.  What is the therapeutic or medicinal value of a condom?  Or that of a birth control pill, an intrauterine device or an injectible (contraceptive),” Enrile said in an interview.

Enrile also wondered why these were the terminology being used although what was being discussed was a health bill.

“I think the real purpose is to control the country’s population through birth control that’s why they (proponents) are advocating this in the guise of a health bill,” he said.

Full story

U.S. Pro-Lifers Blast Western Depopulation Agenda in Philippines and Developing World

By

HLI Staff

– September 12, 2011Posted in: Abortion, Asia, Contraception, Population Control

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In an article that appeared Sunday on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for Life website, two U.S. based pro-life advocates blasted wealthy Western governments for forcing an anti-life population control agenda upon the Philippines and the developing world.

“The [reproductive health] promoters do whatever they have to do to get these things passed — they spend their money in promotion, in getting journalists on their side, opening clinics to circumvent pro-life laws, wooing politicians who value their own power more than they do the families and culture of the nation they represent,” said Stephen Phelan, Communications Manager for Human Life International. “If they can’t get what they want — which is free-of-charge and full access to contraception and abortion — passed democratically, they will use the courts or other non-democratic means to get what they want.”

Full story

Sotto to pro-RH: Bulaga! I went to Harvard

By Christian V. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer

4:25 am | Sunday, September 11th, 2011

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His prolife opinions may not be to the liking of certain parties, but Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III declares he’s no “iskul-bukol” when it comes to the issue of reproductive health.

Sotto on Saturday cried foul over personal attacks against him over his vigorous campaign against the approval of Senate Bill No. 2865, which seeks to establish a national reproductive health framework and allow wider access to contraceptives.

Sotto, a 12-year Senate veteran, has been ridiculed by supporters of the RH bill, particularly in social media. He has been portrayed as being intellectually challenged, largely because of his occasional hosting job at the popular “Eat Bulaga” noontime variety and entertainment show and his background as a comedian and musician.

“It’s because they only know me from ‘Iskul Bukol,’” he said, referring to the popular TV 1980s sitcom featuring a bunch of mischievous, overaged and underachieving schoolboys played by Sotto, his younger brother Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon.

Full story

U.S. Govt. Largest Population Control Promoter in Philippines

by Adam Cassandra | Manilla, Philippines | LifeNews.com | 9/9/11 10:08 AM

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A diplomatic cable recently published by the controversial website Wikileaks confirms the depth of support by the U.S. government for population control initiatives in the Philippines over the past 40 years, including support for the highly contested Reproductive Health (RH) Bill currently under consideration in the Philippine legislature.

“Landmark appropriations and draft legislation reflect increasing commitment within the Philippine Government to further expand and sustain programs started forty years ago with U.S. Government’s assistance through USAID,” former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenny said in the cable. “The U.S. Government continues to be the largest donor in the Philippine population sector supporting efforts to improve local government service delivery and increase private sector contributions to family health outcomes.”

Full story

Abortion stats based on inflated hospital records

MANILA, September 7, 2011–One of the Senate sponsors of the controversial “reproductive health” (RH) bill admitted Tuesday that statistics being used by pro-RH advocates are merely “extrapolations” and are therefore not exact.

Tuesday’s floor debates brought into the open how pro-RH lobbyists have been calculating the supposed number of abortions in the country, which Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago claims is at 570,000 annually.
Under interpellation by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Santiago — a sponsor of the RH bill — revealed that the figure came from 2008 extrapolations by the Guttmacher Institute and the UP Population Institute. The New York-based Guttmacher Institute is the former research arm of the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the US.

Full story

Sotto reveals P26-M lobby funds for RH bill

06-Sep-11, 6:39 AM | Karl John C. Reyes, InterAksyon.com

MANILA, Philippines - Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III revealed Monday that $617,000 (about P26 million) in lobby funds were being used by foreign organizations to fund local organizations campaigning for the enactment of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill now pending before Congress.

In an interview before the start of session Monday afternoon, Sotto said that the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) received a total amount of $617,000 in 2010 to fund activities and campaign for the passage of RH bill.

“It ($617,000) was released to FPOP in 2010, from International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF),” Sotto said.


Full story


visit this site:  www.alfi.org.ph

Opinion

Will US imperialism return with a vengeance? SHOOTING STRAIGHT By Bobit S. Avila (The Philippine Star) Updated September 15, 2011 12:00 AM

During the Miss Universe Pageant in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Miss Angola won the title, while our very own Shamcey Supsup bagged 3rd place. When asked a tough question on love, she replied, “If I had to change my religious beliefs, I would not marry the person that I love because the first person that I love is God who created me. And I have my faith, my principles and this is what made me who I am. And if that person loves me, she should love my God!” Wow! That’s a great answer compared to Venus Raj’s “Major, major!” The CBCP should make her our poster girl for our anti-RH campaign!

Speaking of the RH Bill, I read the March 7, 1970 speech of former Rep. Romulo B. Lumauig of Manila entitled “The New Colonialist” and somehow this article reminded me of how much influence America had in our country back in those days, and the presence of US military bases in Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base were the symbols of America’s stranglehold on our country. It was this reason why our homegrown Communist insurgency with their allied front organizations constantly marched in our streets fighting against American imperialism.

But on that fateful day of Sept. 16, 1991, 12 Philippine Senators, notably, Senate President Jovito Salonga. Juan Ponce Enrile, Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Sotero Laurel, Orlando Mercado, Ernesto Maceda, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Victor Ziga, Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tañada (who authored Resolution No. 1259 of Non-Concurrence to “A Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security”) voted to approve the Tañada resolution, thus rejecting the proposed treaty that would have extended the presence of the US military bases in the country.

I wrote articles against those Senators, as I really wanted the US military bases to stay because of the huge amount of money that the US then poured into our country to operate these bases. I submit that while it gave a lot of jobs in Clark and Subic, it also allowed prostitution to flourish in Clark and Subic. But the Senators were adamant and at the risk of an economic fallout, they rejected the treaty and the US bases became history.

When the 12 Senators threw out the last vestiges of US imperialism from our shores, one would think that the Philippines had finally cut its umbilical cord with America and in a way, this has happened to us. If today the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has been considerably weakened as compared to those times when the US military bases were here, it was due to the fact that the presence of the US bases was a great boon to our military. Indeed, old PAF pilots would tell me that when they landed in Clark, they could get fuel for their planes courtesy of the USA. That’s how it was then.

Today, the AFP has to contend with a miniscule military aid from the United States government who are still sore at us for kicking out (if we didn’t kick them out, Mt. Pinatubo would have done it anyway) their US military bases. Incidentally, I was in Clark last year and toured Angeles City that night and the honky-tonk bars or the sex trade were still very much in business. But because the 12 Senators booted out the US military bases, the Communists ran out of reasons to march in the streets against US imperialism.

A couple of weeks ago the controversial WikiLeaks issue finally entered the Philippine area of responsibility... where cables from the US government to and from the Philippines were exposed in what I would call “Wiki-Tsismis”. Despite Sen. Pia Cayetano’s insistence that the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill will not lead to abortion, Wiki-Tsismis apparently confirms the role of the US government in promoting population control initiatives in the Philippines, through USAID. Perhaps Sen. Cayetano is pretending not to know that almost all contraceptive drugs are abortifacient.

One of these cables apparently revealed that then US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said, “The US Government continues to be the largest donor in the Philippine population sector supporting efforts to improve local government service delivery and increase private sector contributions to family health outcomes.” This cable was sent from Manila to Washington D.C. in July 2008 during the intense debate in the Philippine legislature about state funding for contraceptives and family planning services.

When US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton came for a visit, she made it clear that the Philippines should pass an RH bill. Now wasn’t that “pressuring” the Philippine Legislature, especially the Senate to follow the “orders” of the United States? Sec. Clinton probably thought that the Philippines is still a colony of the United States... or perhaps she maybe right... that we are still a colony of the United States. So we ask our Senators, notably Sen. Pia Cayetano and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago... will they be the instruments for the return of American imperialism to the Philippines? The ball is now in the court of the Senate and our pro-RH Senators!

* * *

For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com.
His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com

During the Miss Universe Pageant in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Miss Angola won the title, while our very own Shamcey Supsup bagged 3rd place. When asked a tough question on love, she replied, “If I had to change my religious beliefs, I would not marry the person that I love because the first person that I love is God who created me. And I have my faith, my principles and this is what made me who I am. And if that person loves me, she should love my God!” Wow! That’s a great answer compared to Venus Raj’s “Major, major!” The CBCP should make her our poster girl for our anti-RH campaign!

Speaking of the RH Bill, I read the March 7, 1970 speech of former Rep. Romulo B. Lumauig of Manila entitled “The New Colonialist” and somehow this article reminded me of how much influence America had in our country back in those days, and the presence of US military bases in Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base were the symbols of America’s stranglehold on our country. It was this reason why our homegrown Communist insurgency with their allied front organizations constantly marched in our streets fighting against American imperialism.

But on that fateful day of Sept. 16, 1991, 12 Philippine Senators, notably, Senate President Jovito Salonga. Juan Ponce Enrile, Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Sotero Laurel, Orlando Mercado, Ernesto Maceda, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Victor Ziga, Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tañada (who authored Resolution No. 1259 of Non-Concurrence to “A Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security”) voted to approve the Tañada resolution, thus rejecting the proposed treaty that would have extended the presence of the US military bases in the country.

I wrote articles against those Senators, as I really wanted the US military bases to stay because of the huge amount of money that the US then poured into our country to operate these bases. I submit that while it gave a lot of jobs in Clark and Subic, it also allowed prostitution to flourish in Clark and Subic. But the Senators were adamant and at the risk of an economic fallout, they rejected the treaty and the US bases became history.

When the 12 Senators threw out the last vestiges of US imperialism from our shores, one would think that the Philippines had finally cut its umbilical cord with America and in a way, this has happened to us. If today the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has been considerably weakened as compared to those times when the US military bases were here, it was due to the fact that the presence of the US bases was a great boon to our military. Indeed, old PAF pilots would tell me that when they landed in Clark, they could get fuel for their planes courtesy of the USA. That’s how it was then.

Today, the AFP has to contend with a miniscule military aid from the United States government who are still sore at us for kicking out (if we didn’t kick them out, Mt. Pinatubo would have done it anyway) their US military bases. Incidentally, I was in Clark last year and toured Angeles City that night and the honky-tonk bars or the sex trade were still very much in business. But because the 12 Senators booted out the US military bases, the Communists ran out of reasons to march in the streets against US imperialism.

A couple of weeks ago the controversial WikiLeaks issue finally entered the Philippine area of responsibility... where cables from the US government to and from the Philippines were exposed in what I would call “Wiki-Tsismis”. Despite Sen. Pia Cayetano’s insistence that the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill will not lead to abortion, Wiki-Tsismis apparently confirms the role of the US government in promoting population control initiatives in the Philippines, through USAID. Perhaps Sen. Cayetano is pretending not to know that almost all contraceptive drugs are abortifacient.

One of these cables apparently revealed that then US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said, “The US Government continues to be the largest donor in the Philippine population sector supporting efforts to improve local government service delivery and increase private sector contributions to family health outcomes.” This cable was sent from Manila to Washington D.C. in July 2008 during the intense debate in the Philippine legislature about state funding for contraceptives and family planning services.

When US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton came for a visit, she made it clear that the Philippines should pass an RH bill. Now wasn’t that “pressuring” the Philippine Legislature, especially the Senate to follow the “orders” of the United States? Sec. Clinton probably thought that the Philippines is still a colony of the United States... or perhaps she maybe right... that we are still a colony of the United States. So we ask our Senators, notably Sen. Pia Cayetano and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago... will they be the instruments for the return of American imperialism to the Philippines? The ball is now in the court of the Senate and our pro-RH Senators!

* * *

For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com.
His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com

ABS - CBN affront against the Church

While reading your email message, Bro.Ed,  I received the following text message passed on by a friend and supposedly from a Fr. B.A. Ong:

"D show XXX of Abs Cbn aired an exhibit in CCP Pasay. An image of Jesus Christ... sacrilegiously vulgarized.  A certain MEDIO CRUZ, a devil atheist artist did this.  CCP management with head appointed by PNoy allowed this to be shown.  We are catholics.  Please pray for forgiveness of this most blasphemous act.  Please pass so others may know this kind of devil now exists in our society."


On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:16 AM, Ed Tirona <ejttirona@gmail.com> wrote:
ANOTHER ABS-CBN AFFRONT AGAINST THE CHURCH!

In the 6:30 pm ABS-CBN Radyo Patrol news tonight (July 22) they featured a supposed artist (missed the name of the bloke who looks more like a gender aberrant) who took the liberty of scandalizing the image of Christ by disfiguring its face and sacrilegiously vulgarizing it with obscenities ostensibly as an art expression. This is another affront to us Catholics coming in the wake of this station leading in church bashing with their invented "Pajero" tag which they feasted on in ridiculing our Bishops for two weeks. Has ABS-CBN given up its sense of decency in being a leading butcher of this administration against the Catholic Church? (would Maria Ressa allow such a despicable act if she were still with this station)?

I call upon the militant Church organizations to denounce this obvious attempt of ABS-CBN to discredit our Church and what we Catholics believe in. Let us denounce this station for its total lack of sensitivity and professionalism. I wonder if the ABS-CBN management will have the guts to do the same to the Muslims. The lay faithful must not allow ABS-CBN to get away with malicious reporting against the Catholic faith!

- Bro. Ed Tirona, Council of the Laity of the Philippines

Statement of Bishops Before The Blue Ribbon Committee

Honorable Members of the Senate:

We thank this august body for inviting us to shed light on an issue that has deeply saddened not only the seven of us but all the Catholic faithful. We hope that our presence will aid your work of legislation. We shall reply with great respect to your questions as far as the facts enable us.

We are from provinces that have some of the most difficult areas that we as Bishops have to reach. Most of us are from calamity or conflict-stricken areas. We serve communities some of which are the poorest of the poor. Our vocation is to help them in so far as we can with our resources. When we lack resources, we seek the assistance of others, especially from those whose mandate is to provide assistance, particularly in health services and in charity. Some of us received service vehicles from PCSO that are heavy duty 4 x 4 pick-ups in order for our social, health, and charitable services to reach remote areas. Others received vehicles that have multiple purposes of bringing indigent sick people to hospitals or distribute food, medicines, and clothing to calamity stricken families.

We are very grateful for the help extended to us. We still believe that we have not violated any law, or even the Constitution. We express our sadness that our sincere desire to help people and receive necessary assistance for doing so has confused, disturbed and even scandalized many of the Catholic faithful. As our pastoral statement has said, we honestly “failed to consider the pitfalls to which these grants could possibly lead.” We also express our “readiness to do everything that is necessary to heal this wound so that we can all move forward in hope.”

For this reason, regardless of whether the acquisition of the vehicles has been lawful or unlawful, constitutional or unconstitutional, we are returning the vehicles. The vehicles in Mindanao are ready for immediate turnover to a duly authorized PCSO official. The vehicles in Luzon are right now outside the Senate for immediate turnover to PCSO officials.

Again, we thank Your Honors for this opportunity to voice our sentiments on this matter.

Thank you and God bless you.

Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, O.M.I.
Bishop Rodolfo Beltran
Archbishop Ernesto Salgado
Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian, SVD
Archbishop Romulo Valles Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos

July 13, 2011

RH BILL - IBASURA


Three online surveys are in favor of IBASURA.  But the FaceBook survey is not.  Please click the link below and vote IBASURA.  Please ask friends also to vote. 

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=question&id=220674131277364&qa_ref=ns&notif_t=question_suggest

Thank you!

‘Europe is dying’ U.S. population expert tells Senate hearing

by Thaddeus Baklinski

• Tue Jun 21, 2011 13:50 EST

Population Research Institute (PRI) President Steven Mosher

WASHINGTON DC, June 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Given the precipitous decline in the birthrates of European countries, all anti-natal programs funded by the United States should immediately be replaced by pro-natal programs, one top population expert recently told the U.S. Senate.

“It doesn’t matter whether we call them reproductive health programs, family planning programs, or population control programs,” said Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI). “They all have the same effect: they force down the birth rate in countries that are already dying. Such programs are only making a bad problem worse.”

The hearing before the Senate Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe focused on the implications for the security, as well as the economic and social developments in Europe, due to demographic decline marked by diminishing and rapidly aging populations, in most of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) 56 participating states.

Commission Chairman, Rep. Chris Smith noted that the member states - every country of Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as the U.S. and Canada - are already seeing dramatic demographic changes that are “sure to have dramatic consequences for the security, economic, and human dimensions of the OSCE.”

“The fact is that most OSCE countries are in demographic decline, many of them in rapid decline. Only a handful of the OSCE’s 56 member states are at or above replacement level,” Smith observed.
Mosher agreed. “Five centuries after the Black Plague devastated Europe, a White Pestilence is now decimating that same continent,” he said. “Many nations, especially in Europe, are already in a death spiral, losing a significant number of people each year. Listen closely, and you will hear the muffled sound of populations crashing.”

The commission heard that the pattern of demographic decline will likely have significant social, economic and security consequences for countries throughout the region. States will become increasingly dependent upon foreign workers in the coming decades, while there will be a dramatic decrease in the pool of potential recruits for military service, resulting in mounting social tensions “as demonstrated by clashes in some participating States in recent years,” according to Smith.

“It is alarming and sad to see xenophobic and ultranationalist violence fueled by one nation’s perceptions of long-term decline vis-a-vis another group,” Smith said.

“Likewise with the economy,” Smith continued. “It is far from clear how, in many of the most rapidly declining countries, how economic growth can be sustained by a declining population - or, to touch on the most pressing specific, how the numerically smaller younger generations will even begin to provide for the larger older generations.”

Steven Mosher, whose presentation to the Commission concluded that the downward spiral of fertility decline and resulting demographic collapse is almost beyond reversal, began his address with a quote from ancient Greece:

“One remarks nowadays all over Greece such a diminution in natality and in general manner such depopulation that the towns are deserted and the fields lie fallow. Although this country has not been ravaged by wars or epidemics, the cause of the harm is evident: by avarice or cowardice the people, if they marry, will not bring up the children they ought to have. At most they bring up one or two. It is in this way that the scourge before it is noticed is rapidly developed. The remedy is in ourselves; we have but to change our morals.” (Polybius, 204-122 B.C.)

A transcript of the Commission hearing titled, “2050: Implications of Demographic Trends in the OSCE Region” is available here.

Urgent Need for Prayers for the Safety of the Holy Father

Pray for the safety of the Pope

Security was considerably increased in the Vatican yesterday after direct threats against the Holy Father were made in a recently-released video by a member of an extreme Islamist group. The Pope and the Italian Prime Minister were called "easy  targets" in the video. [Source: various Italian agencies, including AGI.]

Let us pray for the Holy Father.

Posted by New Catholic at 6/13/2011 03:59:00 AM 

 

Rommel Lopez posted in Filipinos for Life. Rommel Lopez 10:35am Jun 13 From my staff who saw the Harapan last night: I'm not a devout Catholic. I rarely go to church. I almost never read the bible.  But I know the concept of responsibility. When you fail to go to a job interview, expect to lose a chance to get the job. When you neglect your health, expect to be sick. When you fail to keep a promise, expect to lose relations. The consequence may be harsh but that's life's best teacher. I'm afraid that in the future, in this country, married men will be fearless engaging in sex with other women because they know how to prevent a baby from forming. Couples will try beating and nagging each other out to have a good chance for divorce to be granted. Mistresses will have the last laugh for they will soon have an equal, if not more, power over the first wife. I'm afraid that responsibility will not anymore be valued, and noble men will diminish. People will be encouraged to only seek the easiest way out & only do things for fun (commonly misinterpreted as happiness). Congressmen claim: battered women need divorce. Wouldn't that just let crazy guys loose, marry someone else whom they'll abuse too? Wouldn't that deprive the domestic victim the only power she has over the man who has maltreated her? What if that's his way to force her to divorce him? Why not create a law which will prevent abusers from marrying instead? Are we really advocating women's rights or mistresses' rights? I'm don't have anything against children outside of first marriage---they are victims too. But an individual hopping from one person to another, leading to the creation of more motherless/fatherless children should be disciplined too. Why deprive children of their childhood by opening to them, at an immature age, what contraceptive does? Because it is more convenient than to create a law that will prohibit people from poisoning their minds? Why steal a child's innocence? Would that make our country first world? It's sad that we cannot think of a better way to improve our lives & forget that humans too are resources. I personally know people who had gotten pregnant, unplanned. Some were even left by guys who did it with them. Yet, they decided to keep the child, and they never regretted that decision. They even became more responsible. I personally know couples who fell apart because of third parties but reconciled. Good thing, there is no divorce here... yet. They stayed true to their promise. Are we too desperate to be a first world country? Are we too frustrated to end marriage? Why have sex and marry, in the first place? Because it feels good? Because we are happy for the moment? Have we forgotten that responsibility is a big step toward social and economic development? Or are we just saying, we are ready to break vows? Eliminate responsibility, and then what? We'll eliminate love and be anti-social too? Create websites such as that of the students of the University of Chicago, where students fish strangers online to have casual sex? "What ever happened to getting-to-know each other?" commented a host of The Today Show. If it's true that eliminating responsibility and humanity is the only way to make life better, then I believe that the quality of life is not going anywhere but downwards.

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"I shall pass this way but ONCE.
Any Goodness I can DO; Any Kindness I can SHOW
Let me do it NOW.  For I shall Never Pass this way,.. AGAIN."

The Spendor of the Church Blog

Why Contraception
Leads To Abortion
Bernardo M. Villegas

          Some well meaning individuals support the RH Bill because they contend that a more widespread availability of contraceptives will reduce illegal abortions in the Philippines.  They sincerely bewail the thousands of illegal abortions being performed yearly in the Philippines and they are of the opinion that making pills, condoms and other contraceptive devices more freely available, especially to the poor, will actually reduce these illegal abortions.
          Such an opinion is based on pure speculation that is not based on empirical science.  On the other hand, there is abundant research in countries where contraceptive devices are freely available in vending machines or the corner drug store demonstrating that abortions tend to increase with the widespread use of contraception.  I have lived in two countries where contraception has been practiced for decades – the United States and Spain – where hundreds of thousands of babies are being aborted every year.  Even prescinding from the medical fact that some so-called contraceptives (e.g. the “morning after pill” and the IUD) do not prevent fertilization but kill the human life before implantation, the RH Bill should not be passed because it will encourage the widespread use of artificial contraceptives, which in turn will increase abortions.

          Some of our economists who favor the RH Bill are still too enamored with the sterile tool of econometrics. They subject economic data to purely mathematical and statistical analysis without having recourse to the behavioral sciences that can capture more completely the very complex reality that the human being is.  It is no surprise that a good number of “economists” who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in the last decade or so come from other social sciences or make full use of the findings of such disciplines as social psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, etc.  One such Nobel laureate is George Arthur Akerlof of the University of California (Berkeley).   In 2001, Akerlof shared the Nobel Prize in Economics with
Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz.

          From the psycho-sociological studies of Akerlof, we find strong empirical evidence that the widespread use of contraception has increased the rates of divorce, abortion, single motherhood and psychologically disturbed children – which are not only social ills but can lead to significant increases in public spending to address the consequent social problems.  Akerlof described a phenomenon that he labeled “reproductive technology shock.”  He demonstrated through empirical studies in the U.S. that new technologies that had helped to spawn the late 20th Century sexual revolution – modern contraceptive devices and legal abortion – had not only failed to suppress the incidence of out-of-wedlock child bearing but also had actively worked to increase it.

          How can we explain the “reproductive technology shock” from the viewpoint of behavioral science?  For women who had not been using contraceptives, these technologies had transformed the old paradigm of socio-sexual assumptions, expectations, and behaviors in ways that were especially disadvantageous.  For example, the availability of legal abortion now allowed men to view their offspring as the deliberate product of female choice rather than the chance product of sexual intercourse.  Thus it encouraged biological fathers to reject not only any supposed obligation to marry the mother but also the very idea of paternal obligation.  Behavioral changes like these are what are completely ignored by those advocating the RH Bill.  They only focus on the short-run problem of reducing illegal abortions or the number of mothers dying at child birth.

          Even their assumptions about the short-term benefits of making contraceptives available to the poor can be questioned for lack of empirical evidence.  I have seen no studies showing that those who procure illegal abortions would have not become pregnant if they had access to contraceptives.  As demonstrated in numerous studies in other countries, those who are frequent users of contraceptives are the ones most prone to having abortions.  The explanation given here is that contraceptive users tend to take more risks in instant gratification, either with the same partner or multiple partners.  The social norm of avoiding pre-marital sex is more easily discarded when contraceptives are widely available.  This transformation of behavior is explained by Akerlof's theory about “social identity.”  He and co-author Rachel Kranton argued that individuals do not have preferences only over different goods and services.  They also adhere to social norms for how different people should behave.  The widespread use of contraceptives and the introduction of legal abortion in the United States changed the social norms which kept abortions at a low level in the past.  I am against the RH Bill because I take very seriously the findings of behavioral sciences.  The proponents of the RH Bill show an abysmal ignorance of these findings.

          Another assumption being made by those who favor the RH Bill is that maternal mortality would decline with greater access of the poor to contraceptives.  Once again, I find no empirical backing of this heroic assumption.  I still have to be presented studies which prove that mothers who die while giving birth did not want to be pregnant and would have avoided pregnancy if they had been given access to artificial contraceptives.  Obviously, none of these mothers could have been interviewed after death.  It is very possible that these unfortunate women wanted very much to be mothers.  The solution, therefore, is not to increase access to contraceptives but to do everything possible to put up more maternity clinics and to make midwives available even in the most remote regions of the country.  It is beyond me why there is an obsession to reduce maternal mortality by preventing women to be mothers.

          Advocates of the RH Bill will reply to these objections by saying that some local surveys show that there are many mothers among poor households who have had unwanted pregnancies.  With all due respect to these   survey companies and the groups financing such surveys, I find both the methods and contents of these surveys highly questionable from the scientific point of view.  The questions are formulated to elicit the desired answers, very much like polls predicting the results of elections that are financed by the candidates themselves.  These surveys on family planning are frequently funded by inter-national organizations (especially from the U.S.) that have a distinct bias in
favor of birth control.  More objective studies by economists abroad (like Lant Princhett of Harvard University) have scientifically demonstrated that mothers have the number of children that they desire.  The concept of “unwanted pregnancy” is highly suspect except in extreme cases of rape and incest.

          Finally, to the objection that all the scientific studies I have cited only permit a rational person to talk about probabilities, i.e. contraception “may” increase the rate of abortion, I answer that all legislation is about probability.  Speed limits are imposed because driving beyond these limits “may” lead to accidents.  Monopolies are prohibited because monopolists “may” use their power to abuse consumers.  Cigarette manufacturers are obliged to put a warning on their labels because cigarette smoking “may” be dangerous to your health.  For an analogous reason, any rational person will object to a law promoting the use  of artificial contraceptives among the masses because contraception may increase the rate of abortion, marriage breakups,  single motherhood, and psychologically troubled teenagers and all the consequent economic and social costs to Philippine society. 

          For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.