The Abortion Tragedy in the Philippines

I'm so tired of the gaggle of "Pro-Life" politicians in the Philippines.  You've seen them and unfortunately heard them:  Golez, Pacquiao, Enrile, and our favorite dork of the month, Sotto, harping on about the grave dangers of condoms, pills, and IUDs.  All, of course, propped up by the Philippine Mini-Popes, i.e. the CBCP.

Look, I'm a progressive liberal.  I'm about as liberal as a person can get.  When I say liberal I mean liberal in every way:  an economic liberal, a military liberal ("a dove"), and a social liberal.  I grew up in a liberal family, in a liberal culture, in a liberal country called Norway.

In my country, RH isn't an issue.  It hasn't been an issue since...well...it's never really been an issue.  This is because the Catholic Church holds absolutely no sway in Norway.  None.  The pope never visits us because we honestly don't want him to.  (We think he's a bigot, to be quite honest with you.)  In my country the government's been giving out free condoms and birth control pills since the 1960s,  and the state doesn't interfere in a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body.

Sotto's March of Shame Goes On and On

Shamed Senator Vicente Sotto, of the Nationalist People's Coalition, keeps digging his hole of ignorance deeper and deeper.

Senator, it's time to put the shovel down.

We all saw him recently crying in the Senate during his passionate attack on the "big, bad" RH Bill (which has been proposed for more than a decade now), in which he used out-dated "facts" and was caught red-handed plagiarizing the intellectual property of no less than five bloggers.  He then crassly dared the bloggers whose writings he pirated, to sue him.  But that wasn't enough it seems.

It's no secret that Sotto is a Roman Catholic right-winger when it comes to social issues.

He's loud and proud in his opposition to women's right to make reproductive health decisions for themselves...

HIV in the PHL. Religious Right, YOU'RE to Blame.

If you're an HIV virion in the Philippines, business is booming for you these days.

One of only seven countries in the world where HIV rates have risen 25% over the last decade, the Philippines has a very big problem on its hands.  But rather than listening to world medical experts and tackling the problem, the Philippine government is opting to listen to the Religious Right -- particularly the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and its mother ship, the Vatican -- and taking a gamble with the lives of its own citizens.

Unprotected sex between men accounts for 87% of all new HIV cases in the country, according to the DOH and UNDP.  Ten new infections are detected each day, and nobody really knows how many silent HIV carriers are milling around the general population.  Many Filipinos remain untested for the virus, which has an asymptomatic latent period of up to 10 years, during which no major signs or symptoms are seen or felt.

When coupled with the fact that the Philippines has the lowest rate of condom use in Asia, it's a recipe for disaster.  It's a recipe that is now starting to yield some unsavory and frightening realities.

Criminalization of Homosexuality Risks World Health

Countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality are directly responsible for the worsening of the spread of HIV, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO's report, which can be accessed here, points to the fact that it is actually still illegal to be a gay man, and for two men to have sex, in 75 countries.  In Asia, the countries of Singapore, Bhutan, Myanmar, Malaysia, Palau, and certain states in Indonesia are included in that list.  Singapore's law against male-male sex (Section 377A of the Penal Code) is still in place though is rarely enforced.

According to WHO, such legal restrictions and discrimination force gay and transgender people to risk criminal sanctions if they discuss their sex lives with health service providers.  Sexual activity is very important for a doctor to know about it -- whether you're straight, gay, bi, or trans -- but in places where same-sex activity is illegal or where it is strongly frowned upon for "moral" reasons, many people remain quiet.  These archaic laws also give police the authority to harass organizations that provide vitally important health services and education to the LGBT community.

Some Good Old Fashioned RH Bill Panic

For a more recent post on RH (and abortion) in the PH, click here.

Are they serious?  Are these for real?  When I saw these they absolutely blew my mind.  Do these people live in a constant state of fear, or what the hell?

It's Okay to be Catholic and Liberal

I'm no fan of small-mindedness.  It's fine to be "traditional," but when someone is being blindly traditional (i.e. stubbornly and rigidly conservative while ignoring all modern science), it is entirely unacceptable -- whether that someone is a president, a mayor, a judge, or a cleric.

I realize that I've called out the Catholic Church more than a few times in this blog, particularly in their illogical stance on homosexuality and same-sex unions, and I stand by that.  I do not, however, want to give the impression that I dislike Catholics.  That's not the case at all.  I know many, many Catholics and I like them all, and many of them are even pro-marriage equality.  What I dislike are people whose brains are stuck in the middle ages, regardless of which faith they choose to follow.

Simply put, there is absolutely no excuse for stubborn irrationality in the year 2011.  No excuse.  That's why I call out the Catholic Church and many Protestant churches as well, because they're ridiculously stubborn.  They think they're right simply because they say they're right.

"We accept you...as long as you never find fulfillment"

I'm not a Catholic.  Like the majority of Scandinavians I'm a Protestant, a Lutheran to be exact.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church tends to be quite liberal compared to the Catholic Church.

(A warning:  if you're über-conservative you may not want to read the next two paragraphs unless you have your heart medication nearby.)

In the Lutheran Church we have female priests and bishops.  Yes, women are just as good as men.  We also have openly gay and lesbian priests and bishops.  What's more, we allow our priests to get married (both the straight ones and the gay ones); we don't get worked up over divorce; we think condoms are cool; and we don't have a sanctimonious tantrum if two people of the same sex want to get married.  This is evident by the picture above from a recent wedding in Oslo, Norway, where two men were married (gasp!) by a female priest (double gasp!) inside a church (asthmatic gasp!).

One of our bishops recently attended the opening of a Gay Pride Festival in one of Norway's biggest cities and delivered the closing speech as well, saying "The LGBT community has fought a hard fight the last 60 years.  At the core is the fact that the love between two people of the same sex is nothing to be ashamed of."  As you can see, homosexuality is not a "crisis issue" in Norwegian society or in Northern European societies as a whole, or in the Lutheran Church.  The popular governor of Norway's Vestfold county, for example, is openly gay and married to a Lutheran priest.  I'm no fan of intimacy between church and state (pun intended), but in the case of the priest and the governor I'll make an exception. ;)

A Reproductive Health Bill Headache

A more recent post discussing RH (and abortion) in the PH can be read by clicking here.

Apparently for the past few years there has been a lot of hubbub in the Philippines over a proposed Reproductive Health Bill.  As a non-Filipino I never really gave it much thought, until it was brought to my attention in an email I received from a concerned man who is worried that gay rights will lead to legalised abortion via the passage of what he called the "liberal reproductive health law."  His premise was that same-sex marriage causes numerous societal problems, listing drug legalisation and abortion as examples.  He also cited Norway as an example of a country where both abortion and drugs are legal because of same-sex unions.

Honestly the argument he makes is confusing.  First, there is no evidence from any country that legalizing same-sex marriage leads to drug legalisation or other social problems.  Second, drugs are actually not legal in Norway.  He may be confusing Norway with the Netherlands, a country to the south of Scandinavia, where personal use of marijuana is legal but other drugs are not.

As far as abortion goes, it has been legal in Norway since 1979 (and in the Netherlands since 1981) -- 22 and 29 years, respectively, before same-sex marriage became legal in the two countries.  The two have no bearing upon each other; same-sex marriage did not cause abortion legalisation, nor has it caused an increase in abortion rates.

This brings us to the Philippines' controversial Reproductive Health Bill: House Bill No. 03.  Based on a reading of the full text of the bill, it seeks to promote information on and access to both natural and modern family planning methods that are medically safe and legally permissible.  It seeks to ensure an environment where both women and couples have the freedom of informed choice as to which type of family planning they choose to use, according to their needs, personal convictions, and religious beliefs.  That's the extent.

This is what all the fuss is about?  This is what is deemed as a scary, liberal, "D.E.A.T.H." (pro-death, euthanasia, abortion, two-child policy, homosexuality) bill?  Really?? 

What's strange is that some people say Europe is evil because we have abortion.  But you don't have to investigate very deeply to discover that Western European abortion rates are actually the lowest in the world.   In the Netherlands, there are nine abortions per every one-thousand pregnancies. In Norway there are roughly fifteen abortions per one-thousand pregnancies.  But did you know that the abortion rate in the Philippines is averaged at twenty-seven per every one-thousand pregnancies?  Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, yet its abortion rate exceeds even that of the United States (23:1,000).

In Norway the parliament passed a reproductive health bill of its own last year. Well it actually wasn't a new bill, it was more of an upgrade.  We've already had very liberal reproductive health policies since the 1960s.  The new Act is an initiative to cut the abortion rate in half by 2013, by making birth control pills absolutely free to girls aged 16 to 20.  The law now states that it is every young woman's reproductive health right to have access to a free supply of birth control pills, paid for by the government.

A study conducted in two Norwegian cities in 2008 showed that providing women aged 20-24 with free birth control (the pill, injection, patches, spirals, and vaginal rings) cut the abortion rate in those cities in half.  The government was so impressed that it drafted a new bill to subsidise the cost of hormonal contraceptives, with the aim of halving the national abortion rate.  The bill had wide support from all political parties and became law on the 1st of January, 2011.

I'm quite surprised that some Filipinos, including the man who emailed me, think House Bill 5043 is "liberal" and "wicked."  It looks like a very conservative and cautious bill to me.  I understand full well that the Catholic Church doesn't like the bill, and I know that H.E. Archbishop Oscar Cruz says it will "lead to the implementation of an immoral policy."  If they honestly believe that, they are within their right to say so, but I for one cannot see how giving Filipinos the basic option to decide family planning matters on their own is either liberal, wicked, or immoral.  The Filipino people are not children, and they should not be treated as such.

Of course there are other "grave concerns" surrounding the bill, including the much-feared implementation of sex education in the schools.  This seems to be the boogeyman under the bed for many conservatives.  I suppose the status quo of teenagers swapping STDs and getting pregnant is the best way to go? 

I know that if you already don't like Norway, this next bit of information will really seal the deal.  Not only do we have comprehensive sex education in the schools, but students are able to get free condoms from the school nurse anytime.  Birth control pills for girls are also available for free from school nurses, starting at age 16.  Condoms and pills are also available for free from government-run Youth Health Centres which can be found in every community.  What's more, teenagers can order condoms online for free and have them delivered to their home two days later (up to 20 condoms at a time), paid for by the Norwegian Health Department.  Imagine that ever happening in the Philippines.

But in all seriousness, there are very big differences (obviously) between the policies of our two countries. Nordic governments tend to base their policies on research rather than religion, and provide extensive public education programs using a wide range of media. The end results speak for themselves: lower teen pregnancy rates, lower STD infection rates, lower abortion rates.  Teenage abstinence-only education doesn't do that, by the way; proper sex education and access to contraceptives does.

If the goal is to protect the health, dignity, and well-being of the people, then it is high time to use methods that show results. Hopefully for the Philippines, the Reproductive Health Bill will pass, and soon.  And if it does it will at least be a step in the right direction.