THE Reproductive Health Law’s enactment will not mean that Pia Cayetano’s sweet concern for suffering poorest-of-the-poor women will be addressed properly.

Many will still get pregnant year after year and bear the burden of feeding, caring for and watching over their unwanted children. For many will not take the pills or have intra-uterine devices inserted into their wombs. Their husbands will not allow it.

Those women who will take the pills will add another kind of risk to their health, the carcinogenic properties of the free, government-supplied contraceptive pills they will take.

The pro-RH conscience is moved by the suffering and death of women who are ignorant of the escape from unwanted pregnancy and the toil of motherhood available from pills and IUDs etc. Even if they did know about these contraceptive and abortive means, they are too poor to buy them.

The anti-RH conscience is moved by things that are not as heart-clutching as the notion of women who are their ignorant and often drunken husbands’ sex slaves and their unwanted children’s unwilling servants.

What moves them is the murder of embryos and fetuses, human beings in the most elemental form, by toxic contraceptives that actually work as abortives. An estimate says that annually in the United States more than 6 million unborn children are killed by contraceptive pills and devices and actually murdered by abortion procedures. This yearly toll is more than the estimated total of 5.9 million Jews killed throughout Europe in Hitler’s Final Solution.

The pro-RH conscience avoids this pang by arguing against the Catholic doctrine that the human being begins to exist in the womb when the ovum is fertilized by the sperm. They claim that human life begins only when the fertilized ovum has succeeded in clinging to the mother’s womb. Contraceptives prevent the fertilized ovum’s ability to implant himself or herself to obtain life-giving sustenance from the mother. So, the pro-RH conscience tells itself, no murder of a human life has taken place.

This runs counter to the Roman and Orthodox Catholic doctrine—backed by passages from Scriptures, including the Old Testament, that commands that the human embryo “from conception [i.e. fertilization] must be treated as a person” and “must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible like any other human being.”

Two consciences hold competing viewpoints. Only one can be correct.

Another thing that spurs the anti-RH conscience is the medically proven carcinogenic effect on women of having their pregnancies halted—by contraceptives. Not only is the pill toxic. The summary interruption of the pregnancy by a pill causes the woman’s body “think” some illness is overtaking it so it produces chemicals and substances that are antidotes to the perceived illness. The effect of these antidotes being released to cure the body is the production of the seed for cancerous growth.

Globe Telecom volunteers
Here’s good news from my friends Yoly Crisanto and Kristel of Globe Telecom.

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman has lauded Globe Telecom employee volunteers for giving “time, talent, and treasure” to help the country move forward especially in times of disaster.

Globe Telecom is of course not the only corporate entity whose employees have volunteered to embark on disaster rescue and relief missions.

But the Ayala telco people moved the Social Welfare secretary to say:

“It’s just so heartwarming and encouraging to see you committing time, talent and treasure, and bringing in that energy so that you can have positive changes in the lives not just of the people you work with but people whom you don’t even know. That is the spirit of volunteerism. It is providing part of your humanity to another person. And I really think that it is the biggest value anybody can give in this world.”

“For everything that you pack, that would have meant a warm clothing for someone who is cold, filling the stomach of someone who is hungry, assuring a family that they have food in the next three or four days. This may be such a small help but for people who are hungry, it’s a big thing.”

Sec. Soliman said the President himself has noticed and is thankful for the good work of Globe volunteers. He apparently saw the Globe volunteers during the relief packing operations organized by DSWD for victims of Habagat in August, and he hailed the volunteers for their vigor in doing the food repacking and distribution in flood-stricken areas of Metro Manila and Luzon. Some 200 Globe employees participated in that activity.

Secretary Soliman spoke these words of praise at the Globe i-Give Volunteers Recognition Night that coincided with the celebration of the United Nations International Volunteers Day.

The Globe Corporate Social Responsibility head is Rob I. Nazal. From him we learn that “during calamities, Globe always taps its greatest asset—the employees. Employee volunteerism is embedded in the Globe culture and way of life. Right now, we have employees manning our Libreng Tawag Center in Compostela Valley, one of the areas ravaged by Typhoon Pablo. A number of employee volunteers also went to Barangay Aurora and New Bataan for the relief operations there. It is heartening to witness how our employees selflessly and readily lend assistance to those in need.”