Fierce debate over Philippine contraception bill

[LemonAndLime]

It is hardly surprising then that the Philippines has the highest birth rate in South East Asia. In 1990 there were 60 million Filipinos. Now there are more than 95 million. Like her neighbours and more than 80% of the population, Clarita is a Catholic.

She regularly attends church and has a picture of Jesus Christ and a bible verse taped on to the wall of the one small room in which the family live. But recently she has begun to think that, on one matter at least, the Church is wrong. “I used to believe in the Church’s teachings about having lots of children,” she says. “But now I really think we should have family planning.”

Bishop Teodoro Bacani. - “It’s like the government saying it will pass a law which will fund the promotion of pork-eating among the Muslims. Can you imagine what an uproar there would be among the Muslim population?” While many Catholic countries are debating whether to allow abortion, that issue is not under discussion here. Everyone in this debate knows that a bill to legalise abortion would have little support. This is purely about contraception, which according to many senior bishops is almost as bad as abortion anyway, because anything that prevents a sperm meeting an egg prevents a potential birth.

But supporters of the bill say you only need to go into a government-run hospital to see why the country simply cannot cope with so many births. In the Jose Fabella Hospital, near Manila’s seafront, there can sometimes be more than 200 women and their babies in a ward - and often two or even three women have to share a bed. “Mothers just lie down alternately - one will sit, the other will lie down,” says Christina, one of only three nurses on the ward.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15822637

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Sounds to me like the Philippines has a problem with poverty and their healthcare system, and they are tempted by the quick solution of simply having less people to take care of rather than (or at least alongside of) the more difficult but moral solution of improving the economy and access to healthcare.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Sounds to me like the Philippines has a problem with poverty and their healthcare system, and they are tempted by the quick solution of simply having less people to take care of rather than (or at least alongside of) the more difficult but moral solution of improving the economy and access to healthcare.

But which are the most realistically solved, I wonder?

 

[mark_a]

She regularly attends church and has a picture of Jesus Christ and a bible verse taped on to the wall of the one small room in which the family live. But recently she has begun to think that, on one matter at least, the Church is wrong. “I used to believe in the Church’s teachings about having lots of children,” she says. “But now I really think we should have family planning.”

The Church isn’t against family planning. The Church is against her flock trying to beat the system God put in place.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Just how much power does the Catholic Church really have in the Philippines?

I always assumed that the Church’s grip on government there was too tight for something like this to happen.

 

[silicasandra]

Just how much power does the Catholic Church really have in the Philippines?

I always assumed that the Church’s grip on government there was too tight for something like this to happen.

Well, that’s a loaded way to put it.

It does strike me as sad that “family planning” = “birth control” in everyday parlance. I used to be no different, of course, but it amazes me that societies increasingly believe that working against nature, rather than with nature, is the better route (or don’t even have any concept that family planning can work very well with nature.)

 

[_Abyssinia]

This bill has been funded by lobbyists, an official document has revealed:

• $90,000 to the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) for promotion, from the UN Population Fund or UNFPA (2011);
• $6.6 million to Planned Parenthood arm Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) from UNFPA (2009);
• $1.6 million to FPOP from IPPF for the years 2005, 2009, and 2010;
• $1.2 million to PSPI from Marie Stopes (2009);
• $39,000 to Likhaan from Planned Parenthood (2007);
• $88,000 to FPOP in 2009 from Marie Stopes for RH kits; and
• $75,000 to “Catholics” for Choice to promote RH, from the Wallace Global Fund (2009).
• $6.8 million from the Packard Foundation for the years 2006-2008;
• $18.4 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 1997 to 2008;
• $8.86 million from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2004 for a “social acceptance” project;
• and $239.5 million from the World Bank for 2010-2012.

filipinosforlife.com/2011/12/02/official-statement-docs-bare-millions-funding-rh/

 

[Bezant]

Sounds to me like the Philippines has a problem with poverty and their healthcare system, and they are tempted by the quick solution of simply having less people to take care of rather than (or at least alongside of) the more difficult but moral solution of improving the economy and access to healthcare.

If the problem wasn’t a matter of practicality as LemonandLime noted, of course I would agree with you and choose improving standard of living and healthcare over distributing contraception. The Philippines, unfortunately, has one of the most corrupt governments in Asia.

I actually think it’s immoral, in this case, to wait on a corrupt government to clean up in order for one problem to be resolved through another problem.

The Church doesn’t have to change its teachings on proper contraception, or support its distribution, and no one needs to take the contraception.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

If the problem wasn’t a matter of practicality as LemonandLime noted, of course I would agree with you and choose improving standard of living and healthcare over distributing contraception. The Philippines, unfortunately, has one of the most corrupt governments in Asia.

I actually think it’s immoral, in this case, to wait on a corrupt government to clean up in order for one problem to be resolved through another problem.

The Church doesn’t have to change its teachings on proper contraception, or support its distribution, and no one needs to take the contraception.

The bill in question is about contraception.

 

[4Squarebaby]

Just how much power does the Catholic Church really have in the Philippines?

I always assumed that the Church’s grip on government there was too tight for something like this to happen.

Enough that it is one of the few places on earth with no death penalty, no divorce with adultery being a crime and illegal abortion although they self report a rather high abortion rate.

However since the INC tends to vote for who their elders tell them to vote for they may hold the balance of power come any big decision. It seems like the second generation Aquinos what to push the contraception bill through.

 

[Not_Sure_1]

If the problem wasn’t a matter of practicality as LemonandLime noted, of course I would agree with you and choose improving standard of living and healthcare over distributing contraception. The Philippines, unfortunately, has one of the most corrupt governments in Asia.

I actually think it’s immoral, in this case, to wait on a corrupt government to clean up in order for one problem to be resolved through another problem.

The Church doesn’t have to change its teachings on proper contraception, or support its distribution, and no one needs to take the contraception.

Catholic nations should remain Catholic and not change their laws to compromise to modernist standards. Contraception should remain illegal in the Philippines, its one of the few countries left, whose laws at least somewhat conform to the Church.

 

[porthos11]

Catholic nations should remain Catholic and not change their laws to compromise to modernist standards. Contraception should remain illegal in the Philippines, its one of the few countries left, whose laws at least somewhat conform to the Church.

Yes but with a dissident (i.e. regarding Catholic moral teaching on contraception) and vindictive President.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

The Church isn’t against family planning. The Church is against her flock trying to beat the system God put in place.

Oh, fair go, the population has increased by 50% in a mere 20 years. At what point are they supposed to say enough is enough?

I’ve long disagreed with the church’s teaching on artificial contraception, and I’ll go on disagreeing with it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the Contraceptive Pill was God’s idea, given largely through Catholic researchers, **at the very time **population pressures were becoming a real problem in some parts of the world. Just as the graph was going through the roof, along came an ethical method to deal with it.

I’ve got concerns about the business of “papal infallibility” also, since the church has painted itself into a corner on this issue.

From Wikipedia -

Family planning proponent Stephen D. Mumford has argued that the primary motivation behind the Church’s continued opposition to contraceptive use is the Church’s fear of losing papal authority if the pope were to contradict the dogma of papal infallibility.[35] Mumford gives as an example the citation made by August Bernhard Hasler of a comment by Pope John Paul II prior to his papacy:

If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti Connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XII’s address to the midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.[36

Two committees, the first set up by John XXIII, and the second expanded by his successor, Paul VI, “approved by a majority of members, proposing that he might use his authority to approve at least some form of contraception for married couples. A minority number of members opposed this report and issued a parallel report to the Pope.”

And there were 16 bishops on board the second committee.

From Wikipedia -

“The commission of John XXIIIMain article: Pontifical Commission on Birth Control
With the appearance of the first oral contraceptives in 1960, dissenters in the Church argued for a reconsideration of the Church positions. In 1963 Pope John XXIII established a commission of six European non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population. [19][20] The commission that Pope John XXIII formed to study population problems as well as acceptable methods of birth control met once in 1963 and twice in 1964. As Vatican Council II was concluding, Pope Paul VI enlarged it to fifty-eight members, including married couples, laywomen, as well as theologians and bishops. The last document issued by the council (Gaudium et spes) contained a very important section titled “Fostering the Nobility of Marriage” (1965, nos. 47-52), which discusses marriage from the personalist point of view. The “duty of responsible parenthood” was affirmed, but the determination of licit and illicit forms of regulating birth was reserved to Pope Paul VI. After the close of the council a fifth and final meeting of the commission was held, again enlarged to include sixteen bishops as an executive committee, in Rome in the spring of 1966. The commission was only consultative but did make a report to Paul VI approved by a majority of members, proposing that he might use his authority to approve at least some form of contraception for married couples. A minority number of members opposed this report and issued a parallel report to the Pope. After two more years of study and consultation, the pope issued Humanae Vitae, which removed any doubt that hormonal anti-ovulants are contraceptive. He explained why he did not accept the opinion of the majority report of the commission (1968, #6).[21]”.

Hopefully one day the Church might change it’s mind, so that “what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven.”

In the meantime, if the church wants to continue with this policy, then it should also tell the world, and especially a Catholic country like the Phillippines, how the resources and infrastructure should be put in place to cope with it.

Generally speaking, while it continues with this policy, it is flogging a dead horse in my opinion.
[/quote]

 

[GaryTaylor]

Corrupt politics is what creates poverty. Correct Moral-Ethical understanding through CC teaching is what combats the corruption thus the issue.

Embracing Contraception is to continue to walk down the path of Free-Will instead of Gods will. Correct teaching in the resolve, not a fast band-aide.

Peace

 

[Jordan719]

Don’t worry, Mr. Tebow is there, he will straighten up those that haven’t heard the Gospel (Catholics).

Sarcasm of course. ABC is not the solution. The wise listen to Holy Mother Church and trust in Her. She won’t lead us astray.

 

[choliks]

IMHO, the lobbyists are trying to pin poverty on having huge families, which is of course false.

 

[mardukm]

When I first moved to the Philippines, I discussed the matter with a local Filipino, and he told me that the Bill will grant poor families access to NFP methods and education, as well.

My first instinct was . The Bill certainly does not prevent the Catholic Church from teaching against the evil of ABC. I don’t believe that the Catholic Church should be in the business of running governments, but in moving the hearts of people.

HOWEVER, after reading the detail of the contributors to the program, I noticed that Planned Parenthood has a very lopsided contribution to the Bill. So I am suspecting that even though the government promises that NFP methods will be made more available to poor families, that program will be put in the back burner.

So my vote now is :nunchuk:

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Kaninchen]

Couldn’t non-Catholics be allowed to get a ‘Not A Catholic’ certificate which would allow them to get contraceptives?

 

[4Squarebaby]

Couldn’t non-Catholics be allowed to get a ‘Not A Catholic’ certificate which would allow them to get contraceptives?

Only Muslims (who fight the government along with communist) who marry under Sharia are allowed to divorce the other 10% of the non-Catholic population is not would be my 2 cents.

 

[CatholicBoy1957]

Couldn’t non-Catholics be allowed to get a ‘Not A Catholic’ certificate which would allow them to get contraceptives?

Or, even for that matter, how about a certificate that says, “I’m an unfaithful ‘self-identify’” Catholic? Or, “I’m a lapsed Catholic and choose to be immoral”, or “I’m a Protestantized l------ Catholic”?

But if they do that, won’t it allow them, not only to get contraceptives, but to rape, rob, and murder?