User:Klughilton4/draft article on RH bill

Reproductive Health Bill (Philippines), or commonly known at the RH Bill, is one of the most contentious issues in the country, being a bill which proposes to “guarantee to universal access to medically-safe, legal, affordable and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies and relevant information.” It seeks to promote “responsible parenthood, informed choice, birth spacing and respect for life in conformity with internationally recognized human rights standards.”

The contentious aspect of the bill is its key proposal that the government undertakes widespread distribution of contraceptives, and widespread dissemination of information on its use, as a way of controlling the population of the Philippines, which its advocates deem to be growing disproportionately. The bill is premised in the concept that present population growth impedes economic development and exacerbates poverty.

Opposition to the bill is based on several views of the bill: (1) it pushes for contraceptives as “essential medicines”, when pregnancy or having a child is not a disease, and many contraceptives are cancerous, and there are higher priority medical needs among women, (2) it engenders a contraceptive mentality which eventually leads to abortion, a crime in the Philippines, (3) it promotes sex education of the youth which is considered as having brought immorality, teenage pregnancies in other countries, (4) the bill has a wrong premise since there is no consensus among economists that rapid population growth constrains economic development. Presently, the main proponent of the bill is Congressman Edcel Lagman.

Background

Stated purpose

One of the main concerns of the bill, according to the Explanatory Note, is that population of the Philippines makes it “the 12th most populous nation in the world today”, that the Filipino women’s fertility rate is “at the upper bracket of 206 countries.” It states that studies and surveys “show that the Filipinos are responsive to having smaller-sized families through free choice of family planning methods.” It also refers to studies which “show that rapid population growth exacerbates poverty while poverty spawns rapid population growth.” And so it aims for improved quality of life through a “consistent and coherent national population policy.”