Shimizu, Aiko R.

III AB International Studies

The Real Deal About the RH Bill

Should the RH bill be made into a law? It is a question the country has been pondering on and is being debated upon by the senate. This issue could have been resolved easier if our country isnt highly influenced by the church, but of course more than 300 years of colonization by the Spaniards has inculcated in the Filipinos a deep sense of obedience to what the church dictates. Last week, Miriam gave the two sides the opportunity to present their arguments. The first to present their arguments were the antis. Some of their arguments were the RH bill being anti-poor and antiwomen. They say that the government will be spending billions on this law and the programs under it when it will only focus on reproductive health and will be neglecting other more important health issues such as cancer, heart attack etc. This is the reason why they think it is anti-poor. For them the government should focus on other health issues that the impoverished members of the society cannot address by themselves and for them, it is also anti-women because these contraceptives have a lot of side effects. Another point they had pointed out is that every human being has the right to live and this bill prevents life. Then they had shown a picture of an unborn child being treated by a doctor. If you think about it, their arguments are valid and they do have fair points, but the thing is they havent really defended most of their arguments that well and this could be further noticed after the arguments of the pro-rh bill were given. The pro-rhs arguments are just countering the antis. They say the rh-bill is for the women and for the poor because maternal mortality rates are high and the rh bill aims to mitigate this. When their NGO went to cities to provide free contraceptives to women who cant afford it, a lot of them lined up just to get free pills. It was a concrete evidence of how much the Filipino women believe that they need contraceptives. It will also help families in raising their children if there arent a lot of them. It is logical that resource allocation within the

Shimizu, Aiko R.

III AB International Studies

family will be easier if they wont be divided among a lot of members. Another thing they had pointed out is that all drugs have side effects. Why should contraceptives be singled out when there are other medicines with more severe side effects? Another argument that they have pointed out is that, the RH bill does not want to mitigate the population. It may just be a consequence of the enactment of the law, but what they said is that we should look at it in the micro level. For a family that isnt doing well economically, it is just more pragmatic if they had a few members. Lastly the speaker showed a picture of a man regretting the death of his wife after their 15th child. It truly was a compelling picture. For me the pro-RH bill has won me over because they countered all the antis said. They had stronger points and they were all just facts. They were just based on studies, statistics and literatures, unlike the antis who just presented an unorganized set of points and showed what for me is an irrelevant picture.