Posted on 07/08/2009 4:57:40 PM PDT by LadyDoc
The Reproductive Health Bill currently being considered by Filipino lawmakers has stirred up significant debate over its potential to promote economic development and improve access to healthcare, particularly reproductive healthcare. But one crucial point has been neglected: the Reproductive Health Bill is essential to remedy egregious violations on Filipino women’s international and national legal rights occurring under restrictive, ideologically driven policies, such as Manila City’s de facto ban on birth control.
The Manila City ban on contraception, also known as Executive Order 003, was passed nine years ago by former Mayor Jose “Lito” Atienza to effectively prohibit Manila City women - especially poor women - from accessing all forms of modern contraceptives, condoms, and information necessary to protect their reproductive health. As a result, women are unable to prevent pregnancy, even when it would jeopardize their lives, health, or ability to feed their families.
The ban’s devastating impact is nothing short of a deliberate and targeted condemnation of poor women and their families. For a woman who cannot afford contraceptives, the harsh effect of the ban is felt every day - when she is forced to limit the amount of rice she can provide for her children, when she is abused by her husband for declining sex to avoid pregnancy, or when she is forced to endanger her health with high-risk pregnancies that she could not prevent.
Further, each day that the Manila City ban remains in force, the Philippines government is in direct violation of its international legal obligations. The Philippines has ratified a number of international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, that clearly recognize a woman’s fundamental right to family planning services and information - a right that underpins a host of other key human rights, including the right to decide the number and spacing of one’s children, the right to life, the right to health, the right to equality, and the right to be free from discrimination.
International legal bodies have repeatedly condemned the grave and systematic impact of the Manila City ban. Yet the national government has done nothing thus far to mitigate this impact or strike down the ban.
In a time when Filipino migration is on the rise and the Philippines is increasingly engaging with the world community, such fundamental violations in its capital city directly contravene the commitments that the government has taken on by ratifying international human rights treaties.
Should the Reproductive Health Bill pass, it would effectively nullify the Manila City ban, as its language clearly states that any legislation inconsistent with the federal law will be repealed. The Reproductive Health Bill is a critical opportunity for Filipino legislators to bring the Philippines back into compliance with its binding human rights obligations--and finally cease the horrific war on women in Manila City.
Payal Shah and Jaime Todd-Gher are human rights lawyers working with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.
the Philippines government is in direct violation of its international legal obligations. The Philippines has ratified a number of international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, that clearly recognize a woman’s fundamental right to family planning services and information - a right that underpins a host of other key human rights, including the right to decide the number and spacing of one’s children, the right to life, the right to health, the right to equality, and the right to be free from discrimination.
28. One of the most striking aspects of development in the present day is the important question of respect for life, which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples. It is an aspect which has acquired increasing prominence in recent times, obliging us to broaden our concept of poverty and underdevelopment to include questions connected with the acceptance of life, especially in cases where it is impeded in a variety of ways.
Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. In economically developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to other States as if it were a form of cultural progress.
Some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical recognition.
Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help. By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual.
Go ahead, google Jaime Todd-Gher ... she is a San Francisco-origin LGBT activist.
Three articles on the same topic from the same source?
well, I was going to post each on the day they appeared, but our internet goes on and off during monsoon season.
;-)
And seeing three in a row from one paper gives you an idea of the constant propaganda we Pinoys face from those who want to get rid of poor people
ABS CBN is middle class, but you can read similar articles in the Manila Bulletin(pro business/rich families) or the Philippine Inquirer.(anti rich families, populist)
Actually, I have no problem with public hospitals or clinics giving out birth control as part of their prenatal care etc. But their priority is artificial birth control, and pushing it on poor families whether they want it or not. India had a lot of abuse when they did that.
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