A couple on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to stop the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law two weeks after it was signed by President Benigno Aquino 3rd.

James and Lovely Imbong said that Republic Act 10354, or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, which seeks to improve public access to reproductive health services, including natural and artificial family planning options, is illegal.

The couple filed the petition in behalf of their minor children and the Magnificat Child Development Center. Magnificat is a pre-school based in San Fernando, Pampanga.

The Imbongs named as respondents Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Education Secretary Armin Luistro, Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas 2nd, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Health Secretary Enrique Ona.

The petitioners claimed that the new law violates the Constitution.

“[This case] will present the illegality of the Act as it mocks the nation’s Filipino culture—noble and lofty in its values and holdings on life, motherhood and family life—now the fragile lifeblood of a treasured culture that today stands solitary but proud in contrast to other nations,” the couple said.

According to them, “the life of the mother is equally important as the life of the unborn and rightly so.”

“The charge is against the State itself—that it shall do one thing when it comes to the potential of human life: to protect it from the moment of conception.”

They argued that some provisions of the new law reveal its intentions to bring reproductive health care services within easy reach of the poor.

“By doing so, the poor become the primary targets of the State’s planned-parenthood policy—a subtle way of telling the poor that the State will subsidize their right to have access to modern methods of family planning simply because they are poor,” the petitioners said.

Despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church, Congress passed the reproductive health bill on December 20. President Aquino quietly signed it into law on December 21.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) had earlier threatened to question the new law before the Supreme Court after it failed to block the approval of the RH bill in Congress.

In a pastoral letter, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who is also the vice president of the CBCP, said that the reproductive health law “will lead to greater crimes against women.”

“The poor are being promised a better life through the RH Bill. It will not be so. The poor can rise from their misery through more accessible education, better hospitals and lesser government corruption. Money for contraceptives can be better used for education and authentic health care,” Villegas said.

“The youth are being made to believe that sex before marriage is acceptable provided you know how to avoid pregnancy. Is this moral? Those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves,” the bishop warned.    

He said that the free and wide dissemination of contraceptives will destroy family life and lead to more violence against women.

Be careful
On Wednesday, the CBCP said that the passage of the RH bill should serve as a wake-up call for the Filipino faithful in electing government leaders in the upcoming elections.

CBCP Secretary General Msgr. Joselito Asis urged Catholics to be careful in choosing their next leaders, so that laws that will be made will be in line with their beliefs.

“That’s our call to Catholics: to stand up to their faith especially in this Year of Faith. They must
show how strong their faith is,” he added.

Asis called on the faithful to be wise in choosing the next leaders and not to sell their votes.

“I hope this time voters already learned their lesson and not be swayed anymore by money,” he added.

During elections, the CBCP does not endorse candidates but calls on the electorate to support candidates who are God-fearing, pro-family and pro-life.

With a report from Johanna Sampan