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By Lisi Owen
I arrived in Manila to intern with EnGendeRights, a women’s legal
NGO, almost 10 weeks ago. As I’m preparing to return to the US
next week, I’d like to offer my thoughts on reproductive health
policy in the Philippines. My departure conveniently coincides with
the CBCP’s recent vow to vehemently oppose the reproductive health
bill pending in the House of Representatives as part of its
“pro-life” stance on family planning, so this letter is all the
more appropriate.
As I’ve never spent a significant amount of
time in a developing country, living in the Philippines has been an
enlightening experience for me in many ways. One thing I’ve
learned is that whenever I think to myself, “It can’t be that
bad,” it turns out that it can be that bad, and might be even
worse than I can even imagine. That is certainly the case with the
reproductive health (RH) policy here.
Before I left the US I Googled “Philippine
reproductive health policy,” and hits about “natural family
planning” (NFP) came up. Since when I hear “natural family
planning” I think nineteenth century, and since I’ve never known
anyone who actually thought NFP was a legitimate method of
preventing pregnancy, I of course didn’t believe that NFP-only was
seriously the position of the Philippine government on family
planning. And of course I thought to myself, “It couldn’t be
that bad.”
But it is that bad, and yes, even worse than I
could have imagined. The Philippines is in the dark ages of
reproductive health. “Withdrawal” is not a method of family
planning; it is how adolescents who don’t know how to use a condom
end up dropping out of high school to raise a baby at age 16 and
even end up having three to four children by age 20.
I have a staunchly Catholic friend in the US
with whom I shared all the recent news articles articulating the
CBCP’s position and vow to oppose the RH bill, and his response
was that Filipino Catholics need to “wake up.” Spain, Belgium
and other Catholic countries have woken up and changed their laws on
contraception, and even abortion, so why is the Philippines still
sleeping?
I have seen 30-year-old women being taught how
to use a condom. When I tell Filipino friends that I work for a
pro-choice NGO, they ask their friends whether they are
“pro-contraception.” I have seen women begging, pleading for
ways to prevent future pregnancies, to end their families’
suffering. There is no excuse for this kind of ignorance and
primitive mindset about reproductive health, and the misery it
imposes on a rapidly growing Filipino population.
In response to the Church’s so-called
“pro-life” position, I have this to say: Life is more than the
possibility of a fertilized egg. Life is children living in
pushcarts on the sidewalk, wearing no pants. Life is women who risk
death every time they get pregnant, but continue to do so because
their husbands beat them when they refuse sex in the name of
“natural family planning.” Life is sitting on your front step
waiting to die, because you’re that miserable, and have nothing
else to do.
If the Church is pro-life, then I ask this of
the bishops: How do you justify the suffering you cause? This is not
a matter of the Church or the government sitting idly by and
allowing people to suffer, but an active promotion of misery, and it
is wrong.
I recognize the American imperialism that has
preceded me in the Philippines, and how that might influence your
opinion of my views. But before you dismiss me as another American
trying to impose my heathenous, western views on a country that’s
seen enough outsiders meddling in its business, let me clarify my
position: It is one of choice. If you want to practice natural
family planning with your partner, that is your prerogative. If you
want to capitalize on the benefits of scientific progress to control
your own reproductive health, that is your prerogative as well.
It is not, however, the prerogative of the
government to impose its own archaic, paternalistic religious views
on the suffering people of a nation, (in violation of both the
Philippine Constitution and international law, I might add) such
that they are stripped of their power of autonomous decision-making.
That, my good Filipino friends, is dictatorship.
[Lisi Owen is a legal intern at EnGendeRights, Inc. and secretary,
Law Students for Reproductive Justice, University of Denver Sturm
College of Law. Her email address is lisi.owen@gmail.com]
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