Lord, save us from some of your followers.

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The Word on Women - Emotions high over Reproductive Health bill in the Philippines

BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – Two female presidents have governed the Philippines, an achievement its neighbours have yet to match. The country also has high-profile female politicians, activists and entertainers who have made names around the world.

Yet these powerful women who run countries and companies successfully have not been allowed to access family planning policies according at will. They cannot go through procedures like tubal ligation without their husbands’ consent or take contraceptive pills without being reminded it is, as the Catholic Church termed it, “intrinsically evil.”

Or, like an outspoken commentator said, “The absurdity is that Filipinas are free to vote, be doctors, lawyers and soldiers, run a business, a political party or the whole country, but cannot even take the Pill. Or we can, but we’re told we’ll go to hell for it.”

This could all change, if Noynoy, as the current president Benigno Aquino III, son of democracy heroine Corazon Aquino, is better known, gets his way in getting the Reproductive Health (RH) bill approved in Philippines’ parliament.

But first he has to get past the country’s most powerful institution, the Catholic Church, which has threatened civil disobedience and likened him to ousted dictator Marcos for warning against such actions.

The bill is currently in second reading and the heated debate over it will continue when Congress resumes in late July.

“SEX BILL”

Around 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic. A poll last year showed seven out of 10 would support an RH bill that does not decriminalize abortion. The Church however opposes access to and information about contraception methods,

One Archbishop called the proposed RH bill a “Sex Bill” where the end products “are promiscuity, insensibility, amorality.”

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