Philippine top court approves birth control law

Philippines approves birth control law | The National

Philippine top court approves birth control law

April 8, 2014 Updated: April 8, 2014 11:39:00

MANILA // The Philippines’ highest court approved Tuesday a birth control law that supporters said would transform the lives of millions of poor Filipinos, in a stunning defeat for the powerful Catholic Church.

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Comment Rising population needs education, not sterilisation
Topic Philippines
“The RH law is not unconstitutional,” Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te told reporters, announcing a ruling that struck down more than a dozen petitions against the reproductive health law by church groups.

The law requires government health centres to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, as well as mandating that sex education be taught in schools.

The law also requires that public health workers receive family planning training, while post abortion medical care is also legalised.

The Catholic Church had until Tuesday led a successful campaign for more than 15 years against any form of family planning laws in the Philippines.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino defied church pressure and signed the law into effect in December 2012, but the Supreme Court quickly suspended it after church groups filed petitions arguing it was unconstitutional.

“This monumental decision upholds the separation of church and state and affirms the supremacy of government in secular concerns like health and socio-economic development,” legislator Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the law, said immediately after the verdict.

“A grateful nation salutes the majority of justices for their favourable ruling promoting reproductive health and giving impetus to sustainable human development.”

The Catholic Church, which counts over 80 per cent of the country’s 100 million population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as “evil”, and at one point in its opposition campaign threatened Aquino with excommunication.

One of its hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former senator Francisco Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open revolt.

“This means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most extreme,” Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Times newspaper on Tuesday.

“Some of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be, in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger than ourselves.”

Church leaders have helped lead two revolutions that toppled unpopular presidents in recent Philippine history, and they continue to insist they have a right to influence the parliamentary and legal branches of government.

Another example of its enduring influence is that the Philippines is the only country where divorce remains illegal.

Nevertheless, many people across the sprawling archipelago have embraced less conservative views in recent decades.

A recent survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said about 84 per cent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free family planning options such as contraceptives.

It said 72 per cent were “in favour” of the law.

Women’s rights groups and other supporters of the law say it will be a powerful tool in fighting poverty and cutting the birth rate of 3.54, one of the highest in the world.

More than a quarter of the population live on the equivalent of 62 cents a day, according to the government, and experts say there is an urgent need to provide free reproductive medical services that the poor cannot otherwise afford.

More than a third of the capital’s 14 million population live in sprawling slums, according to a 2010 World Health Organisation report, and many of them do not have access to proper sanitation, let alone health centres.

According to the British medical charity Merlin, which has backed the passage of the law, 14-15 mothers die daily in the Philippines in complications related to child birth.

* Agence France-Presse



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Let us all take this moment to welcome the Philippines as the latest addition to the 20th century! I'm sure this will be implemented and practiced immediately.

Larry

 

yes Larry Welcome the Philippines into the 20th century.
With all it's other problems I fail to see how birth control methods will solve anything worthwhile.
Everything comes at a price, I can't see the Philippine Government setting up Family planning Clinics can you ?
Just my thoughts on the subject.

 

No, actually I don't see it making a drastic immediate improvement, but at least it may be a step into the real world. The problem will be in all likelihood, those that run the "clinics" will be old school people dedicated to the church and it's ways, so any improvement will come in 50-100 years, if then. By that time the Philippines will have 200 million or so people, or more, and any efforts will be much too late.

Does anybody remember the helmet law?



Larry

 

Lets look at the 20th Century Western Style
Age of legal consent is 16 yrs, but you can have the pill under age if you ask for it.
Sex education for six year olds in school.
Officially you can now marry your same sex partner, but if you have Christian beliefs cannot choose to refuse a room to gay couples if you own a hotel/ B+B.
Marriage vows will no longer use the words Husband or Wife.
Abortion on demand.
Demoted if you speak out against what you believe to be wrong.
The list is long and there are many who could put forward a better arguement than me.
Welcome to the Politically Correct 20th century.
Sometimes I wonder why expats choose to live in the philippines, I thought that they had become disillusioned with 20th Century Western Culture, I guess I might be wrong......JB

 

There are always exceptions to the rule,I'm one.
"Safe sex is no sex-safer sex is using protection and birth control" I agree!
However it is not the act of sex that is the problem it is the consequences.
I also said I guess I might be wrong meaning not everybody has the same reasons.

 

Just FYI, do you REALLY think the Philippine is in the 21st century? You are giving them much more credit than deserved. Almost ALL countries except the Philippines allowed divorce in the 20th century or before. It was not a typo or an error, let's welcome the Philippines to the TWENTIETH century! Nobody said anything about THIS being the 20th century.

They may (or may not) enter the 21st century in another 50 years or so.



Larry