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By Rene Q. Bas, Editor in
Chief
Others see the debate between
Rep. Edcel Lagman, together with co-authors, and opponents of the
bill as one pitting Faith (and adherence to the doctrine of the
Catholic Church) versus giving every woman an Informed Choice about
whether to be pregnant or not. If not, then the choice is of what
method of contraception to use and being informed about what each of
these methods entails. (See related
story “Facts about birth control” by Rony Diaz.)
Since abortion is
illegal—criminal—in the Philippines, there is theoretically no
choice between aborting and not aborting a baby in the womb. In
reality, however, the number of illegal abortions must be rather
large. Filipinos take pride in the Philippines being a country whose
population is 85 to 90 percent Catholic, yet the number of dead
fetuses found in garbage cans, public and mall toilets is appalling.
Faith vs. Pragmatism
Some see the debate between those
who are for HB 5403 and those who are against as one on the issue of
Faith versus Pragmatism.
The article of Faith is that God
gives a soul to the human being at the moment of conception—that
this moment is when the woman’s egg is fertilized by the man’s
sperm. It does not matter to the believer if the tiny fetus cannot
survive by itself. It is a human being because it has a soul from
God Himself.
This being the case, then all the
utilitarian messages—about the country getting better chances of
vanquishing mass poverty or being doomed to poverty forever by its
large population—mean nothing to the believer. These messages
don’t even mean anything to the wife of the husband who is always
drunk and requires her as a sex object every night.
Chemical contraceptives and IUDs,
too, are anathema. They prevent the fertilized egg from being
implanted in the womb. Not having found his or her connection to the
uterine wall, the tiny fetus—already a baby in the mind of the
faithful and of the Church—will die in a “miscarriage” which
is in reality an abortion because pills or devices were used to
prevent that human being from properly being linked to his or her
mother.
Pragmatists are frustrated
because they cannot win assent from the believer to allow the
abortion of embryos resulting from rape and incest. They must
understand that the believer—and the priests and bishops—can
never agree because that offspring of a criminal sexual act is a
human being, a being with a God-given soul. Why should the baby be
blamed for the evil act of the incestuous relative or the rapist?
How then to deal with the poor
mother carrying an unwanted child? How about her right to rid
herself of an “intruder”?
Only in societies where people
have ceased believing that the smallest fetus is already a human
being are laws passed allowing her to dispose of the being she
carries in her womb because it is “a foreign object.” As long as
the fetus is a human being, it cannot be killed, which is what
abortion is. It cannot be prevented from growing in the womb.
The Catholic Church, and those
who respect its teachings, believe as the Catechism says: “Human
life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of
conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being
must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is
the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
This belief is validated by the
words in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 1:5) “Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
And in the Book of Job (10:8-12):
“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy
me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to
dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like
cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with
bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in
your providence watched over my spirit.” And Psalm 139:15: “My
frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret,
intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.”
Catholics against HB 5403 also
talk about its illegality, the unsoundness of socioeconomic plans to
make poor people prosperous by having less of them and other purely
materialistic wisdom, the danger of the Philippines being afflicted
by the West and Japan and Korea and Singapore’s “empty cradle”
situation.
But the most important issue of
all is the belief (which others may deem either loathsome or
laughable) that fetuses are human beings. That is why they will not
allow the bill to pass without a fight.
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