An open letter, a petition, a statement of the obvious, an appeal to common sense and a call for fidelity: the first five responses to the latest stunt pulled by pro-RH Ateneo professors

UPDATE 8/21/12 @ 8:00 PM Manila time: I've posted the text of a memo from Fr. Jet Villarin, President of Ateneo De Manila University, regarding this issue. My post includes my commentary on the memo. Ateneo De Manila University's Memo on the Pro-RH Declaration: Text with Commentary

UPDATE 8/21/12 @ 5:00 PM Manila time: Fr. Charles Belmonte has penned a longer follow-up to his original note on what is "Catholic": Fr. Charles Belmonte reminds us of the politically incorrect fact that to be rightfully called Catholic, one must be... Catholic!

UPDATE 8/20/12 @ 1:50 PM Manila time: a FIFTH response, a short note from Dr. Quirino Sugon, has been added to this post. I've inserted it between Ricardo Boncan's petition and the CBCP News article on Archbishop Palma's recent remarks on this matter. 

The recent declaration of 192 (and counting) college-level Ateneo faculty members in favor of the RH bill is not surprising to anyone who is remotely familiar with the actual state of  much of 'Catholic' higher education in the Philippines. In too many Filipino Catholic colleges and universities there is open dissent against the Magisterium, ridicule and hatred directed at the very Church that nurtures them, and a refusal to actually try to know what the Church teaches, in favor of an "academic freedom" that one-sidedly favors 'free-thinking' and  often elevates childish propaganda against Catholicism to the level of protected academic speech. I do not deny that there are many good Catholic teachers and students even in the most 'secularized' of 'Catholic' schools, but their presence only makes the existence, and oftentimes the dominance, of theological dissent in Filipino Catholic institutions of higher education all the more glaring. Unfortunately, many Filipino Catholics -- clerics and laypeople alike -- had refused to acknowledge the existence of the problem. With this recent incident, it is no longer possible for Filipino Catholics to pretend that the problem does not exist. 

Meanwhile, I have the honor of presenting the first four public responses by Catholics to the Ateneo professors. I present them in no particular order. 

The first is an open letter by Ed Sorreta, Chairman of Pro-Life Philippines, that is now being circulated as a Facebook note. This is the full text of this letter:

To say out front, I am against the RH bill for reasons that are very real and personal to me.  But I do not intend to delve into these because there has been enough talk on the pros and cons of this bill.  It is now time to make a stand. That is why I respect their opinions, no matter how flawed they are to me.

What is beyond me is how they can group themselves together and make a public statement against the pronouncements of the Church of which their university is a part of.  What model of respect for authority can they impart to their students when they themselves do not live it?  I can be more forgiving with UP, a government university or any other non-sectarian educational academy if they support the RH bill.  But for Ateneo, a recognized Catholic institution, to publicly declare their support is something that is inappropriate and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Therefore, I challenge these renegade professors to stand their ground and resign from the Ateneo.  If they do not have the decency to do that, I call on the Jesuit community running the Ateneo to mete out sanctions against them.

If the Jesuits refuse to do this out of their principle of intellectual liberalism, I ask them to have the propriety of reclassifying Ateneo from being a Catholic institution to a non-sectarian university.  This is a call not only for the Ateneo but for other Catholic schools who defy the teachings of the Catholic Church.

EDGARDO SORRETA

Chairman

Pro-Life philippines

The second is an online petition launched by Catholic pro-lifer and blogger, Dr. Ricardo Boncan, who is an alumnus of ADMU. The following is the full version. A shorter version is coming out today (August 20, 2012) on the column of Antonio Montalvan II in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. As of the publication of this blog post (c. 4:00 AM on August 20 in Manila) this petition, less than 2 days old, has garnered 214 signatures. 

Re-claim The Catholic Identity of the Ateneo de Manila

Petition published by Ricardo B. Boncan on Aug 18, 2012

Petition Background (Preamble): 

In August 2012, 160 Ateneo faculty members abused their position and misused the name of the Ateneo de Manila University, a Jesuit-run university with a Catholic mandate, to express their personal stand and agenda in favor of the Reproductive Health Bill.  

http://www.theguidon.com/1112/main/2012/08/160-ateneo-professors-push-for-rh-bill/ 

The administrators of the Ateneo have not done anything to answer these dissenters nor to defend Catholic teaching on the matter.  

This petition is to precisely ask the Jesuit Fathers for accountability. 

Petition: 

August 15, 2012 

Written on the Solemnity of Our Ladyʼs Assumption

Father Jose Ramon T. Villarin, S.J

President  

and  

The Jesuit Fathers of the Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

Dear Fr. Villarin and the Jesuit Fathers of the Ateneo de Manila University, 

Over the past 3 years, we, concerned alumni, family and friends of the Ateneo de Manila University have stood idly silent as some Ateneo faculty members abused their position and misused the name of this Catholic university to express their personal stand and agenda in favor of the RH Bill. The memo released against this by then ADMU President Fr. Ben Nebres was one of perfunctory, mild dissociation against the, then only 70 or so, faculty members who signed on. 

While declaring the official Jesuit stand against contraception as being consistent with the Church, Fr. Nebres, defended their actions by defaulting to what he claimed to be, “academic freedom”, that supposedly allowed them to express their personal views as faculty members of this Catholic University. As a result of that token denouncement and “academic freedom” excuse, these faculty members have become emboldened and have come out in bigger numbers to espouse an agenda and political ideology contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, confidently using the good name of our school, a Catholic school, to give credence to their voice. 

Academic Freedom in the proper context of allowing academicians to explore the ethical and moral limits of their chosen field and teach the good that comes out of it, is a praiseworthy principle. But what has happened in this case is clearly not that! Many of these faculty members are using the name of our university, its Catholic mandate, its Catholic ties to their own ends in the disguise of academic freedom. It gives the impression to many of us Catholic alumni, friends and family of the Ateneo that our Jesuit Fathers condone this action and have abandoned their calling to fight for Catholic truths. 

My dear Jesuits, THIS IS NOT FREEDOM, this is ACADEMIC TYRANY. Among those held hostage by these tyrants and dissenters are the many other faculty members who have chosen to be silent for fear of being ostracized by their peers, for holding contrary views on the issue. However, the biggest and greatest casualty here are those who were entrusted to be under your intellectual and spiritual care, the STUDENTS of the Ateneo de Manila University. 

As Catholic priests of a canonically formed order, founded by a great saint, Ignatius of Loyola, we find this unacceptable! These students are being made collateral damage by ideologically driven faculty members who freely “educate” them with things contrary to their Catholic upbringing. We, the parents of these students have spent years bringing them up, espousing love of Christ, His Church and obedience to Catholic teaching, especially in the area of sexual morality and sending them under your care, confident in the thought, that the Ateneo would do the same and even strengthen them. All that effort, only to be undone by these anti-Catholic principles being espoused by faculty members, under your employ, teaching under the name of this great school. 

Calling to mind Blessed John Paul IIʼs encyclical, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (ON CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES), ... 

Article 2, “Catholic teaching and discipline are to influence all university activities, while the freedom of conscience of each person is to be fully respected(46). Any official action or commitment of the University is to be in accord with its Catholic identity.” 

Article 4, “The responsibility for maintaining and strengthening the Catholic identity of the University rests primarily with the University itself. While this responsibility is entrusted principally to university authorities (including, when the positions exist, the Chancellor and/ or a Board of Trustees or equivalent body), it is shared in varying degrees by all members of the university community, and therefore calls for the recruitment of adequate university personnel, especially teachers and administrators, who are both willing and able to promote that identity. 

The identity of a Catholic University is essentially linked to the quality of its teachers and to respect for Catholic doctrine.” and lastly, “Those university teachers and administrators who belong to other Churches, ecclesial communities, or religions, as well as those who profess no religious belief, and also all students, are to recognize and respect the distinctive Catholic identity of the University. 

We therefore; 

1. denounce the continued misuse of the Ateneo de Manila Universityʼs name by these 160 faculty members for their statement and stand for institutionalized contraception as it is contrary to Catholic teaching. 

2. ask our Jesuit Fathers, especially those in the administration, to publicly settle this matter unequivocally and strongly for the benefit of Catholic students under their care. 

3. ask that an explanation to all students of the Ateneo, on the clear and unwavering position of our Catholic school and our Jesuit fathers, on the matter of artificial contraception should also be sent to parents and alumni of the university. 

4. ask that a clear, strong and resolute reprimand be given to those who willfully signed that statement and made use of their position in order to voice their dissent to Catholic teaching. 

Inspired by this and the Ignatian motto “Lux In Domino” we pray that you, our dear Jesuit Fathers, take this letter as a show, of nothing more, than our love and concern for the school that nurtured our growth and made us what we are today, Men For Others. 

“We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides” St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, AMDG

(See update at the top of this post.) The third response I am placing here is Dr. Quirino Sugon's short note on the Facebook page of the Ateneo Latin Mass Society. He had signed Dr. Boncan's petition and was explaining his signature:

I signed the petition below in response to the 160 Pro-RH Ateneo professors who signed the petition in support of the RH Bill, in defiance of the Catholic Church teaching on contraception. I hope you and your other Atenean friends will also sign below. This is now a battle of the Two Standards. We need to reclaim the Catholic identity of our beloved university. Fidelity to Mary is fidelity to the Catholic Church. It cannot be otherwise.  

“We stand on a hill between the earth and sky. Now all is still where Loyola’s colors fly. Our course is run and the setting sun ends Ateneo’s day. Eyes are dry at the last goodbye; this is the Ateneo way. 

"Mary for you! For your white and blue! We pray you’ll keep us, Mary, constantly true! We pray you’ll keep us, Mary, faithful to you! 

"Down from the hill, down to the world go I; rememb’ring still, how the bright Blue Eagles fly. Through joys and tears, through the laughing years, we sing our battle song: Win or lose, it’s the school we choose; this is the place where we belong! 

"Mary for you! For your white and blue! We pray you’ll keep us, Mary, constantly true! We pray you’ll keep us, Mary, faithful to you!"

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Quirino Sugon Jr.

Coordinator

Ateneo Latin Mass Society

The (fourth) is the following 'statement of the obvious' of the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines regarding Catholic schools that waffle on the RH issue, as reported by CBCP News:

Schools defying Church teachings may lose Catholic status

MANILA, August 17, 2012— The Catholic hierarchy may strip a school of its affiliation with the church if they go against its teachings particularly on life issues, a ranking archbishop said. 

Archbishop Jose Palma, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president, said this is possible if a Catholic school and other institutions violated ethical and religious directives of the church. 

“If we are a Catholic school, we should not teach anything contrary to the official teaching of the church,” Palma said. 

Amid the debate on a controversial artificial contraception measure, he admitted that there is a clash of beliefs between the church and teachers of some Catholic schools. 

However, the Cebu archbishop said they are trying to solve the problem through a dialogue. 

“In some places, we first talk to them because some teachers may have some misunderstanding of what they think of freedom of conscience or academic freedom,” said Palma. 

“In some of the universities, we say that if you want to teach that idea, do not do it in a Catholic school because we are confusing the students… do it in other universities,” he said. 

The CBCP head stressed that the motive why parents send their children to Catholic schools are for reasons of faith formation. 

“They are hoping that their children will learn the Catholic teaching and also the Catholic formation,’ he said. 

“It will be a contradiction if we will bombard them with ideas which are against the official teachings of the Catholic faith,” added Palma. 

Around 160 professors of the Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) have openly expressed their support for the passage of the reproductive health (RH) bill opposed by the Church. 

The professors first released this statement in 2008, and reiterated their stand recently as the House entered into the period of amendments on the RH measure. 

They also stated that they are not speaking for the entire Ateneo institution and only expressing their personal position. 

The ADMU, however, as a Jesuit and Catholic university, clarified that it still stands with the CBCP and the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus. 

Only last month, the Vatican has withdrawn the Catholic identity of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, because some of its policies are “not compatible with the discipline and morals of the church.” 

The Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium has also come into question in recent years as the Vatican probed the embryonic stem-cell research conducted at Leuven and its sister institution, Louvain. [RL/CBCPNews]

And, last but not the least, the following little Facebook note from Fr. Charles Belmonte that is now being shared by many pro-lifers, which explains in common-sense terms why an institution that refuses to teach Catholic tenets shouldn't be calling itself Catholic:

If you have a shop which exclusively sells pan de sal, ensaymada and mamon, don't call it "Hairdresser salon" because it is not. No insult. It's just a matter of sincerity and decency. 

If you have a university which hardly teaches the Catholic faith (irrelevant whether this faith is true or false), don't call it "Catholic" or "Pontifical" because it is not true. 

I don't know what is to be a Muslim, but I can tell you what is to be a Catholic: to be baptized, to profess the faith which the entire Catholic Church professes and has professed from the time of the Apostles (as taught by the pope and bishops) and to obey the legitimate pastors (the hierarchy). 

I don't think it is matter of academic freedom, but of sincerity and decency.

Our situation is best summarized with the following quote from George Orwell: We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

Will we really continue to overflow with new students? The reality about our birth rate

For more on the Wall Street Journal op-ed referenced here, see this: Wall Street Journal op-ed slams RH bill!

Your bosses, the schoolchildren
By: Antonio Montalvan II
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Monday, July 30th, 2012

“You must also tell it like it is,” President Aquino, in a foul mood, was heard castigating media at the recent anniversary celebration of “TV Patrol,” a prime-time news program. That’s what we think: He must tell it like it is by getting his facts right, especially in a State of the Nation Address.

The shortage of classrooms, desks and textbooks will be over, but “sikapin nating huwag uling magka-backlog dahil sa dami ng estudyante.” This is the nuance of that statement: More students are coming into our schools even as we address the backlog.

What kind of selective data is being whispered into his ears? Reading the litany of statistics on his teleprompter (impressive), the President could not have missed one glaring data from the National Statistics Office (NSO). The multisectoral nationwide Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines Inc. (ALFI) took note of this discrepancy by comparing it to the government data from the NSO.

The data, easily accessed through the NSO website (www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/datavs.html), tell us that since the year 2000, the number of babies born every year has actually stopped increasing. Moreover, this has even dropped by 2.2 percent to 1.745 million babies born in 2009 as against 1.784 million babies born in 2008.

In defense of Manny Pacquiao

Belittling Pacquiao

By: Antonio Montalvan II

Philippine Daily Inquirer

4:03 am | Monday, June 6th, 2011

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago always has a mouthful to say, but none perhaps as distasteful as when she said that Manny Pacquiao should not enter into the ring of the RH debates. That was classic intellectual arrogance. Adding to the fray was media’s suspicion that Pacquiao was cornered by the bishops into defending their stance against the RH bill.

Both are farthest from the truth.

How the "other side" proves the correctness of pro-life criticisms of the RH bill

Kris-Crossing Mindanao

Chant the RH mantras

By Antonio J. Montalvan II

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 01:17:00 05/16/2011

YOU WERE born yesterday. Your science is outdated. Your faith should be schizophrenic—leave it at your doorsteps.

That, in recap, seemed to be what pro-RH Bill adherents are saying to those who oppose it. Watching ANC’s “Harapan” more than a week ago, the time has come for us to shift to what is not being said because these actually speak volumes. To get anywhere near the truth which precisely cannot be afforded any denial is what is owed to a public on the verge of making an informed decision. But by arguing with the “follow what I say, not what I do” mode?

Edcel Lagman, for instance, was clearly caught on the defensive when confronted with what he had repeatedly claimed, that the RH Bill is not a population measure. Lagman could not counter the fact either that the Philippine population growth rate has been steadily declining. Why the need for the bill?

Esperanza Cabral did not deny saying that the pill can cause breast cancer. Yet that fact is slurred over by pro-RH advocates precisely because it will demolish their cause. I am sure Cabral did not commit a boo-boo. She is a medical doctor and knows the truth and for that we must be grateful to her. In fact, we must now use her statement as a mantra. The medical evidence on the link between contraception and breast cancer is well established. But in downplaying that fact of science, is that not lying?

Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel kept on saying “no name calling” yet could not stop colleague Carlos Celdran from making an unkind cut on the still-speaking Joey Lina by saying, audibly to televiewers, “liar!” Who started the Damaso trend of name-tagging anyway? Wow, so much integrity is indeed at stake here, let alone proper manners.

A Thomas-Aquinas-quoting Sylvia Estrada Claudio admitted she was no Catholic yet could not explain how the RH Bill could in fact impose its domination on those who deem it contrary to their faith. Imagine an employer who is Catholic face the specter of jail if that employer refuses to make available contraceptive services to employees.

Again, the mikes picked up Carlos Celdran, muttering audibly without being asked, that “We have the Pulse Asia and SWS surveys behind us, where the respondents did not have to pay 2.50 to text in their answers.” Precisely, the inutile selectivity for surveys. We are pleased with them only when the results are in our favor. But when a soaring 65 percent is against the bill?

It is the taxpaying public who will pay the costs of the RH Bill, truly a bonanza to multinational pharmaceuticals. Going base in denying the truth about contraception is a vicious approach at educating the public. That approach will be futile: the history of contraception is long.

We have much to learn from one of the most astute contraception magistrates of the world. To Hillary Rodham Clinton goes that credit. At the G8 Foreign Ministers meeting in Gatineau, Canada, Clinton chastised the host Canadian government, a conservative at that moment, for focusing on maternal health by omitting discussions on contraception.

“I’m not going to speak for what Canada decides, but I will say that I’ve worked in this area for many years. And if we’re talking about maternal health, you cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.” (underscoring mine)

There you have it. A bogey it is not.

Besides the Cabral mantra we must now chant, add the Clinton mantra that contraception and abortion are, verily, conjoined twins. Thank you, Mrs. Clinton.

The US Secretary of State could not have skimmed over the fact that in Canada, the birth control pill was legalized there in 1969, the same year it legalized abortion. Just a year after, Canada Statistics reported 11,152 abortions. Today that number is a whopping 106,418, a ten-fold increase since 1970. And yet how pervasive is contraceptive use in Canada? The World Health Organization reports that “among Canadian women age 15-44, 86 percent report using the pill.”

“There is no culture or subculture in the world that has permitted contraception and then has not gone on to permit abortion,” writes Natalie Hudson in “The Contraception Misconception.”

“As acceptance of contraception increases, so does acceptance of abortion. Why is this the case? Because at the root of contraception is the notion that a couple can engage in sexual activity and avoid its natural consequences. Couples who unintentionally conceive a child while using contraception are far more likely to resort to abortion than others.

“Contraception alters our understanding of human sexuality by changing its purpose. The effects are far reaching and affect the way that we understand relationships, gender roles and the human person. Contraception has historically been promoted as a means of women’s emancipation, yet ironically it has led to a much greater objectification of women. Women’s bodies have become a testing ground for pharmaceutical companies to reap profits from the myth that the natural consequences of sex can be avoided; women are put out of touch with their bodies as their fertility cycles become chemically controlled; and contraception can also be used to hide the evidence of abuse that is sometimes perpetrated among young or marginalized women.”

“It is a sin to tell a lie,” medical doctor Rep. Janet Garin, sworn to the Hippocratic oath, says. If my understanding is correct, I suppose the Garin Morality also covers not lying to the public that now has to make an informed decision on the RH Bill? Transpose that to a doctor not disclosing all the medical consequences to a patient. No wonder the ignorance is much.

Now comes Death knocking on the Philippines’ doors. But chant the mantras.

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Comments to antonmonta@gmail.com

The Media's RH Bandwagon

The ignorance is invincible

By Antonio J. Montalvan II

Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE LENTEN fare on national television was the most contrived ever. All of a sudden, episodes focused on the charity works of famous individuals and the humanitarian undertakings of a large Catholic lay organization; shouldn’t these be regular fare, instead? All of a sudden, Catholic Church-bashing came to a halt.

With the Lenten holidays over, we can expect the church barrage to resume. As the Congress recess comes to an end, one resurrection is clear: expect media to take up again the issue on the Reproductive Health Bill. But do not expect it to contribute to a healthy discussion. Media, generally, have never been on the side of the church on the RH Bill.

One of the greatest recent ironies we have seen in media is how a statement of a new thespian in bowler hat ala Rizal (“The Church’s pronouncements on the RH Bill are all lies!” or words to that effect) is never matched by the whole stock of scientific studies proliferating in the open about the ills of contraception.

Nor was there fair coverage when Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel was said to have been singled out from a Baguio pulpit. News anchors of Baraquel’s sister’s television network (where she is a perennial guest, naturally) were quick to the draw. Immediately, Baraquel was on the air. It had taken a few days later to air the side of the Baguio priest, and not before he had already been vilified, his arrogance taken to task for a wrong use of the pulpit (as if a correct theological use of the pulpit had always been part of media knowledge).

It is not enough to say that the RH Bill has received popular support, as the so-called surveys are said to have shown. Popularity will never ever erase the ills of contraception. It may be popular to say that the Church is lying or is meddling in the bedroom, a quip that easily lands a prominent place in media headlines. No matter the so-called popularity, it will never remove the fact that the efficacy of contraception will always be a false perception. We only have the tell-tale data from countries after many years of contraceptive use. All that data are not to be sought in musty libraries.

Media have had the propensity to ignore that data. That is incredible in a wired age where data are at our fingertips. And we are not even talking about Wikipedia.

Why the selectivity? Campaigns for contraception have never been a free lunch. There is money in the lobby. Congress and money are the wrong partners, as they always have been. Congress is the wrong place to dictate on something that should be left to personal preference.

The arithmetic is simple. Who stands to gain if government starts buying contraceptives from tax money? Who also stands to gain from the travel perks dangled to some media writers? Naturally the slant for the favor is understandable.

But it is a slant where the deciding public turns out as the victim. Pro-contraceptive activists have always cried out for women’s rights and that great euphemism “informed choice.” But 61-percent use of contraceptives by women aged 15-49 in both marital and consensual unions worldwide has not improved the worth of contraceptives. Commercial interests and ideological fervor notwithstanding, the world’s abortion rates continue to be alarming. The growing number of the young who are contracepting has not reduced the startling rates at which sexual diseases are being transmitted. Where divorce in the West stood at only over 300,000 in the 1960s, when contraception was first introduced, today the rates stand at the millions. Clearly, “informed choice” appears to be non-existent.

Studies have repeatedly shown that contraceptive use has not improved the quality of marriage. Counselors often cite the wife as commonly saying: “During intercourse I am only an object, a thing, a means, at the service of my husband’s pleasure.” These are factual data coming from countries that have had long years of contraceptive use. Obviously, “reproductive rights” are not confined merely to the woman’s side of the issue. If data on such institutions being eroded scream at our face, it becomes more astonishing how they can be ignored.

Worst, I have not heard anyone from the pro-RH side admit the connection between contraception and cancer. There the data are supposed to be profuse. Is the omission deliberate? We shudder to think that even the board of the Philippine Obstetrics and Gynecology Society (POGS) has sidestepped that issue, they who are supposed to be at the forefront of responsibly protecting the health welfare of society.

It is not difficult to see where the Philippines is headed with the eventual passage of the Reproductive Health Bill. Yet these issues are not being discussed openly. It becomes more dreadful to imagine that our legislators, many of whom may easily be swayed by media as the gauge of how their constituents think, will eventually decide on the matter. Once the floor debates progress, we can easily judge how much knowledge they have gained from their readings on the issue, or the lack of it.

Interference in religious freedom will always be a thorny issue for legislation. To begin with, it should never be legislated at all. The Constitution guarantees that. But even that aspect of the RH Bill is being ignored.

We may be off to a bandwagon for the RH Bill. But that will never erase the fact that much of our people wallow in ignorance about the issue. In fact, we are only continuing to guarantee that the ignorance is invincible. No one can beat, at this point, media’s failure in shaking us out of that unshakeable ignorance.

As Guyito, the Inquirer mascot, tries to make it out lightly, even Malacañang is ignorant. How much more for ordinary mortal Filipinos?

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Comments to antonmonta@gmail.com

Using the rhetoric of the pro-RH side against the RH bill: Antonio Montalvan's latest salvo

Going natural or going chemical?

By Antonio J. Montalvan II

Kris-Crossing Mindanao

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 04:49:00 02/21/2011

GIVE A chance to choice before saying anything disparaging about the consolidated “reproductive health” bill that has already passed the scrutiny of the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives. That was what somebody said among the minority downbeat letters I get every time I write about pro-life issues.

The operative word, however, seems to be the word “before,” which in reality already suffers as a non-sequitur. And that is because “choice” is actually existent. Couples can easily buy condoms over the counter. That goes true with pills. Sterilization, which is an injectable administered to women every three months, can be demanded for free at any government health center.

So where is the need for a “reproductive health” bill? Good question, but I continue to enclose that term in quotation marks. Is it really a health need that puts human vigor and well-being as its primary target? Well, we are fixated with scientific surveys. Why can’t we just stick to the facts?

In this day and age of passion for the environment, when many are going natural and organic, artificial means of contraception appear to be an anachronism. Let science speak.

Among many is a five-year study done by the Environment Agency in the United Kingdom where half of the male fish in lowland English rivers are “developing female characteristics because of pollution.” The BBC, a cable television favorite alongside CNN, reported that “Scientists blame the pollution on a ‘potent’ form of estrogen found in urine from women using the contraceptive pill, which may be flushed through sewage works and into rivers.” In 2002, the United Kingdom declared hormonal birth control a type of pollution.

Biodiversity activists may wish to take a deeper look at the evidence. In the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s Center for Environmental Oncology—the name alone is already indicative of what it does—a research team discovered that fish caught inside the water they were testing “may be carrying enough chemicals that mimic the female hormone estrogen to cause breast cancer cells to grow.”

Why should we be concerned with that? Right to life advocates behind the study aver: “Think about the water you drink. Think about the fish you eat. Could your own drinking water be infested with high levels of estrogen? What kind of effects would take place if we drink water containing high levels of estrogen and eat these contaminated fish?”

What is the democratic choice that “reproductive health” advocates now say must be legislated? First, it is this. It is a choice for women who take the birth control pill, patch and other birth control products who put themselves at risk. What kind of choice is that? Science has already confirmed that the pill can cause a woman to develop deep vein thrombosis which can block the blood supply to the heart or brain, resulting in a heart attack, stroke or death. The clot could also travel to the lungs, which then could result in a pulmonary embolism or death.

Second, science has already established that the birth control pill, patch, intra-uterine device and similar birth control products also work as abortifacients by thinning the uterine lining and making it impossible for the newly conceived child to implant and grow. Even the Physician’s Desk Reference or PDR, the most frequently used reference book by American physicians, and the US Food and Drug Administration which requires drug manufacturers the so-called “professional labeling,” both claim birth control pills have an abortive mechanism by “introducing changes in the endometrium which reduce the likelihood of implantation” of a newly fertilized human being.

Third, the hormones in the contraceptives are partially absorbed by the body of the woman who consumes them. The residue ends up in our wastewater, which causes hazards to the environment and ultimately to those who consume the water. It goes without saying that it is like bringing cancer direct to the dinner table.

These studies have been replicated by researchers in the South Platte River and Boulder Creek in Colorado as well as in Puget Sound in Washington State in the last 10 years. Similar studies at University of California-Long Beach, the US Geological Survey study done at the Potomac River, the Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick, all say in unison: estrogens cannot be completely broken down by sewage treatment. Yet here we are in the Philippines completely oblivious to what the evidence says. We must be out of touch with the rest of the 21st-century world.

Consider these from the consolidated “reproductive health” bill: “The State likewise guarantees universal access to medically safe, legal, affordable, effective and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies and relevant information and education thereon even as it prioritizes the needs of women and children, among other underprivileged sectors.”

A section of that proposed bill specifically identifies “modern” artificial birth control methods and devices that the Philippine government ought to subsidize and their access legally enforced, as namely, “hormonal contraceptives,” “intrauterine devices,” “injectables,” and “others” because they are arguably “medically safe and effective, pro-poor and affordable, rights-based.”

Pray tell us—unless we are as dense as not to understand the fine print—where is the ethics there? Where, oh where, are the human rights? Where is the sustainability to human development?

Surely it should not take sophisticated legalese to complicate the answers.

(Comments to antonmonta@gmail.com)

"The way to the RH Bill is certainly not paved with good intentions"

Kris-Crossing Mindanao

A death sentence for 2011

By Antonio J. Montalvan II

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 05:04:00 01/10/2011

WERE THEY on life-or-death tenterhooks? Reports have it that the committee on population of the House of Representatives met by themselves last Jan. 2. Nothing extraordinary there, except when you begin to recall that Jan. 2 was a Sunday and was still within the New Year’s Eve hangover period. Perhaps they were just hardworking. But then we are told that those in attendance were only the pro-RH Bill committee members and their pro-RH Bill NGO counterparts who acted as “citizens’ representatives.” The alleged intent was to put that meeting on record as the third and final “public hearing” on the Reproductive Health Bill, and then railroad it for plenary agenda.

If truth is stranger than fiction, then we are in for an illegal, unconstitutional act. Informed of this development, a vehemently opposing Roilo Golez reportedly vowed to make the railroading impossible. Before the House adjourned for the holidays, Golez was second on a list of 20 interpellators with his interpellation still in progress.

The bill’s supporters have repeatedly claimed, like a broken record, that the RH Bill is not pro-abortion and contraceptives are not abortifacients. With a possible railroading maneuver, the public is now brought to the canyon’s edge. An informed choice from life and death issues emanating from contraceptive use has to be imminent.

As that midnight committee meeting was surreptitiously taking place, the journal Contraception released its January 2011 issue on 2,000 Spanish women aged 15 to 49 who were surveyed every two years from 1997 to 2007. Researchers found that within that period the number of women in contraceptive use increased from 49.1 percent to 79.9 percent. But there was more that truly puzzled the researchers, who paradoxically had aimed to gather information about contraceptive use in order to reduce the number of abortions. Over that period, the country’s abortion rate more than doubled from 5.52 per 1,000 women to 11.49.

That is not odd. Over the years since the 1950s, both scientific studies and abortion advocates themselves (such as Alfred Kinsey, Beckworth Whitehouse and Christopher Tietze) have pointed out the connection between abortion and contraception. In 1979, Malcolm Potts, then medical director of International Planned Parenthood Federation, had admitted that “as people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.”

Also admitting that connection, the US Supreme Court said in its 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey that “In some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception. For two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail,” the justices wrote.

Documented scientific fact has long recognized that since almost all so-called contraceptives routinely fail at statistically significant rates resulting in “unplanned pregnancies,” abortions have become a social requirement to take care of such “accidents.” Among many studies, the Guttmacher Institute’s report “Contraception Counts” (2006) showed NO correlation between better access to contraception and lower abortion rates. “Seventy-two percent of low-income teens who cohabitate and rely on condoms will become pregnant within a year, and protection rates against STDs are even worse. We have one million unplanned pregnancies in the US every year due to contraceptive failure, half of which result in abortion.”

With sexual activity rising from greater contraceptive use, abortion thus has become part of the “safety” constellation, a contraceptive in itself. Hence the pattern all over the world is to legalize contraception first, then legalize abortion later. When contraception fails tremendously, women start looking for illegal abortion; so then it has to be legalized. We have said in the past that they are Siamese twins.

Is the pill an abortifacient? The common defense is to say that it is not because it only prevents ovulation. That is not even a half-truth, however, for additionally, it has two other actions. It thickens the genital tract’s cervical mucus, rendering it more viscous so as to inhibit sperm penetration. But thirdly, it thins the lining of the uterus known as the endometrium, impairing implantation of the newly fertilized egg, effectively killing the new human being that already has its own set of genetic codes. That is the same action an intra-uterine device (IUD) does. If that is not abortion, what is?

Pills are composed of hormonal steroids and chemicals that have been known to cause deep vein thrombosis in women, a blood clot that forms in the vein which can block the blood supply to the heart or brain, resulting in a heart attack, stroke or death. The clot may also travel to the lungs, causing pulmonary embolism or death. It has been estimated that 25,000 lawsuits could take place in the US due to one brand alone of a birth control pill.

Normally the New Year ushers in good tidings. In this case, however, RH Bill proponents have just prescribed us a death sentence, via a reprehensible means of cultural, political and constitutional imposition. The way to the RH Bill is certainly not paved with good intentions.

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Comments to antonmonta@gmail.com