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RH Bill: Are you for or against it?
The RH bill is now in the high priority list of congress and
soon the representatives will
be forced to decide on the issue. As of now, the battle lines
are slowly being drawn as the
arguments are rehashed. Im an advocate of good governance in
public health. We run initiatives
in different areas and it is not new to me when people ask my
opinion about the RH Bill. Are
you for or against it? , they would usually ask.
I have always evaded the question because I know debates almost
end up nowhere. The
conflicting values are deep-set. However, I also realized that
by staying in the middle, I am not
contributing to the country to be able to move forward beyond
his impasse. I have read previous
versions of House Bill 4244. I have also read Senate Bill 2378.
Both are similar in that they cite
maternal mortality as a primary basis for the law. While HB 4244
merely hints about teenage
pregnancies, SB2378 explicitly states the need to mitigate high
teenage pregnancy rates. Finally,
HB4244 explicitly includes Population Development while SB2378
does not.
In order to have a handle on the Pro-RH Argument, and without
over simplifying the
rational of the proposal, it is okay to consider that the
primary reason for the bill is birth deaths
and over population.
On the other hand, the Anti-RH Argument primarily focuses on
morality and the values
of the Catholic Church.
During MY consideration, I had to sadly dismiss the argument of
the Church that RH is a
moral issue. I believe that putting this forth as the highest
moral degradation in the country is
inaccurate and being selective. I believe that if morality is
the lens at which I am to argue, I
would also need to argue against corruption with the same zeal
if not more. This consistency
created double standards that occlude any sense of morality that
the Church has. The Churchs
lack of consistency in communicating and addressing moral issues
and priorities regrettably
diminished their ascendancy in this particular matter.
Never-the-less, I cannot easily dismiss the catholic values in
which my faith was founded
and strongly anchored. For this reason, the values I hold serve
as counterweight against RH Bill.
I delved into this and studied the RH Bill with a negative
perspective against it. I needed to see a
counter value for me to seriously consider endorsing this
publicly and with my friends. It is
something that threatens part of my identity and at some length,
what it means to be a Filipino.
As I studied the RH bill, and as I immersed myself in public
health development and
maternal health development, I saw the counter-weighing value
against what I held.
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The question that stretches the social consciousness of the
country is not a moral issue
but an ethical dilemma. On one side is my Catholic value which I
hold dear and on the other side
is the genuine need to address a public health issue.
This ethical dilemma is enough motivation for me to take time to
read and re-read this
policy proposal. At the very least, I found, thru my reading and
a few years of exposure in publichealth, that it would be unethical
if I am dismissive of the RH Bill.
I found that the rational for the RH Bill justifies a measure to
address maternal health
development. Deaths due to complicated pregnancy is very high
and teenage pregnancy is also
high. I believe that simply going against the bill without an
alternative to address the maternal
health issues in the country is irresponsible.
But there is also fundamental flaw in the way the bill is
presented. Let me sight the tw
issues about the RH bill that leaves a doubt in my mind.
First, the policy rationalizes maternal health needs as a
primary reason for the bill. As it
does, it pushes reproductive health.
By framing the need to address maternal health with a
reproductive health bill, the
authors of the bill have pushed population control as a twin
sister in pushing for maternal health
development. Consequently, any efforts that rationalize the
improvement of maternal health
delivery, like birthing, pre-natal check-ups will be questioned
because of the controversial
reproductive-health-twin-sister.
In my view, I believe that maternal health must be pushed
separately form reproductive
health. In my experience managing public health programs, the
need for improved public andprivate maternal health facilities and
services must be prioritized with or without the RH Bill.
Though some issues in reproductive health is intertwined with
womans health, maternal care
need to be approached separately from population
control/development. If the framers were more
sensitive to the Filipino culture, they would know better to
separate the policies to give maternal
health development a lead start at addressing the issues.
But I can only speculate that they packaged the two issues
together because reproductive
health initiatives are next to impossible to pass in our
country.
In the US, they have a policy that addresses preventive care for
as many as 47 million
women. In this law, which is a big part of Obamas signature
health care program, private health
care policies must cover yearly check-ups of women with no
out-of-pocket costs. This
coverage include: Pre-natal care, breast exams, cancer
screening, diabetes screening, and
domestic violence screening. Under Obamas health policy they
will also cover breast feeding
supplies as well as contraception. The contraceptive coverage
provoked a political fight with the
religious groups and conservatives. This issue is very important
as employers renew policies. So
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far their proposed solution is to offer a waiver to religious
employers to exclude contraceptive
coverage. Just today, House Republicans argued that the federal
government has gone too far
with this policy. New York Representative Ann Buerkle said, This
is not about womans health.
This is the largest assault on our first amendment rights which
is religious freedom. Because of
this, women who need the other benefits besides contraceptives
will have to wait a little while
longer as the US Congress sort this out.
