NEWS ALERT: Critics of Catholic Ban on Contraceptives Get Pope's Attention

From: News from PLANetWIRE <PLANetNews@ccmc.org>
Subject: NEWS ALERT: Critics of Catholic Ban on Contraceptives Get Pope's Attention
To:
Date: Monday, July 28, 2008, 11:48 PM

ROME, July 26 – An unusual open letter to Pope Benedict asking him to lift the Church’s ban on contraception was so widely noticed yesterday that the Vatican felt compelled to respond.

The letter from more than 50 dissident Catholic groups was published July 25 as a half-page ad in Italy’s largest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, on the 40^th anniversary of the “Humanae Vitae” encyclical in which Pope Paul VI established the ban.

The 1968 ban, the groups said in the ad, is still “a source of great conflict and division in the church” and “has had a catastrophic impact on the poor and powerless around the world, endangering women’s lives and leaving millions at risk of HIV.” It noted that as most Catholics use contraception and feel they are not sinning, the policy has been “an utter failure.”

In a sharp response, Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said the ad was “paid propaganda to promote the use of contraceptives.” Noting that the word “love” did not appear in the letter, he added, “It’s been 40 years, and the critics of Humanae Vitae still don’t get that it’s about love.”

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice and organizer of the open letter, said he was “delighted” at the response. “Within hours of the ad appearing, we achieved our central objective of letting those who have continued with this fatally flawed policy know that Catholics the world over oppose the ban on contraception,” he said. The response “demonstrates that the church hierarchy is acutely aware that the ban on contraception has seriously harmed its relationship with Catholics in the pews.”

In a related development, the Times of London reported in its online editions on a survey of 1,500 Catholics in parishes across England and Wales that found half use contraceptives and more than half thought the ban should be revised. It was conducted by The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine.

Read more at www.PLANetWIRE.org.

Contact: Nicole Tidwell at 202.326.8710 or ntidwell@ccmc.org for more information.

ABU launches new award for HIV/AIDS programming

Region :Asia and the Pacific
Country :None
Topic :HIV/AIDS, Fellowships and Awards

The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) has launched a new award to honor outstanding reporting on HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region. Deadline: September 15.

The prize recognizes the efforts of broadcasters in creating programs of a high-standard that educate the public about HIV/AIDS. According to Francyne Harrigan, development projects manager at the ABU, the competition is an integral part of ABU's commitment to galvanizing media's power in Asia-Pacific to help reduce the AIDS epidemic.

The prize is open to all ABU member organizations. Entrants may submit up to two entries and the entries must have been first broadcast after September 2007. The Award recipient will win US$2,500 and will be flown to Bali, Indonesia to attend the gala award ceremony on November 24.

For more information, go to www.abu.org.my/abuprizeHIVAIDS.

Congress takes First Step to Restore UNFPA Funding

Congress Takes First Step to Restore UNFPA Funding

WASHINGTON, July 17 – Renewed U.S. funding for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, moved forward in both the House and Senate this week, winning approval from two committees essential to further progress.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today allocated $45 million for UNFPA, an increase of $11 million over last year’s appropriation. On Wednesday, the influential House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations approved $60 million for UNFPA after a closed-door battle.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), who sponsored the House measure, hailed the moves as “critical” for the agency’s family planning and reproductive health care programs in 140 countries. The bill, part of an overall $600 million spending measure for family planning and reproductive health care assistance programs worldwide, does not alter the existing Bush administration ban on use of the funds in China, restricting it use to specific programs with broad general support. The Senate bill mirrors the House bill in this regard.

These include providing contraceptives and safe motherhood medicine, equipment and supplies; treating obstetric fistula; and combating female genital cutting and child marriage.

The House funding, offered in a closed-door legislative markup session of the subcommittee, would ensure that UNFPA receives U.S. funds for non-China programs hereafter. The Bush administration last month withheld for the seventh straight year $40 million Congress previously appropriated for UNFPA, on grounds the agency is “complicit” in coerced abortions and sterilizations in China. UNFPA has repeatedly denied the charges and cited independent studies that found its work is “a force for good” in China.

“President Bush’s justification for withholding these funds does not hold water with his own State Department, let alone with the millions of women and children who need the vital care UNFPA provides,” said Lowey. “I will fight to protect these critical funds.”

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney added “The U.S. should be leading the way in providing health care to the world’s most impoverished women, children, and families. Years of backward Bush Administration polices have put us far short of this goal time and again, but the Democratic Congress is working hard to pass critical investments in reproductive health care for women in the world’s developing nations.”

Amy Coen, president of Population Action International, called the House vote “a major step forward,” noting that “the importance of investing in family planning programs has never been greater.”

CLICK HERE to read a press release from Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey.

CLICK HERE to read a statement from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.

CLICK HERE to read a press release from Population Action International.

CLICK HERE to read a press release from Americans for UNFPA.

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New Rules Would Threaten Right to Contraceptives

RESOURCES

Read author Cristina Page’s blog on the proposed HHS rules.

WASHINGTON, July 15 – Reproductive health advocates reacted with outrage today to a report in The New York Times that the Bush administration is proposing new rules that would discourage doctors and health-care clinics from providing birth control to women who need it. This proposed regulation deliberately confuses the definitions of contraception and abortion and could cause disarray in law, regulations, and policy.

The proposal would define “abortion” as "any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said she was “gravely concerned” that such language would “radically redefine abortion to include some of the most common and effective methods of birth control.”

Marilyn Keefe, Director of Reproductive Health Programs of the National Partnership for Women & Families, called the proposal “an ill-conceived political ploy designed to win favor from those determined to deny women basic health services.” She said it would “put politics ahead of women’s health” and “shows callous disregard for low-income women facing unplanned pregnancies.” She pointed out that 90 percent of women in America use birth control, and that the proposal to appeal to the remaining 10 percent would be “political pandering at its very worst.”

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said the new rule would be “unprecedented” in “allowing individuals, institutions and programs receiving Health and Human Services funds to refuse to provide necessary health care services, including contraception.”

Recent research by the Women Donors Network has found that family planning opponents are only 9 percent of all likely voters, and that the rest overwhelmingly support policies and programs to expand access to safe and effective methods of birth control.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from The National Partnership for Women & Families.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from The Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

CLICK HERE to read a press release from The National Women’s Law Center.

CLICK HERE to read a press release from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

CLICK HERE to read a press release from Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.

Exercise self-discipline in bed, archbishop tells couples

To these Bishops,

GET REAL!

And hello, contraception does not kill the unborn. How could that be when there's "nothing" to be born? Idiocy is deadly and they're spreading it under the guise of religion.

I hope the Filipinos have "wisen" up after all this time.



Exercise self-discipline in bed, archbishop tells couples

By Kristine L. Alave
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:01:00 07/26/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- Amid the raging debate on artificial methods of birth control, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales’s advice to all married couples is to exercise more “self-discipline” and “self-control” in bed.

In his message to the Catholic flock at Friday’s prayer rally marking the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical on the Regulation of Birth or Humanae Vitae, Rosales said the lack of discipline in the marital bed rebounds on other aspects of life.
Because life should be valued and its creation is a serious matter, “there should be discipline and self-control” between couples, the prelate said in Filipino.

Couples who have the discipline to practice the Church-sanctioned natural family planning methods are “in possession of true values of life” and tend to pass it on to their children. They also tend to be good citizens, he said.

“If there is discipline in the marital bed, then there is discipline in the streets, there is discipline in schools, there is discipline in the government,” he added.

The Catholic community held a massive gathering at the University of Santo Tomas parade grounds on Friday to reaffirm their commitment to Humanae Vitae, which prohibits artificial contraceptives on grounds that they deliberately impeded life, and to denounce a proposal in the House of Representatives to create a national reproductive health policy.

The Catholic Church approves only of natural family planning methods, which entail close observation of a woman's temperature and discharges, to determine her fertile days. Couples who practice natural contraception methods avoid having sex when the woman is fertile.

In his message, the Manila archbishop said the Catholic Church will fight for the “defenseless” fetus.

According to Rosales, anyone who halts the life of an unborn child can be likened to Herod, the king who ordered the massacre of infants after Christ was born.

“Wherever this happens, in the clinics, health centers, or hospitals, ending the life of a child inside a mother’s womb is a repeat of Herod’s massacre of the innocents… and a Herod could be your neighbor,” he said.

Meanwhile, in opposition to the Catholic Church’s hard-line stance against contraceptives, an evangelical group on Saturday said it supported artificial birth control methods because of the “alarming growth of our population.”

While the Bible tells mankind to multiply, it also has specific instructions for humanity to care and protect all of creation, the board of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) said in a statement.

“About 5,800 babies are born daily.… One doesn’t have to be an economist to tally how much more food, water, shelter, medicine, and other resources will be needed for their support. At the [present] growth rate, there will be 100 million Filipinos by 2013,” the group said.

To ignore this problem is a “totally irresponsible” decision, the group said, given the high cost of living in the country.

“The present uncontrolled population growth over these many years has undeniably contributed to, and accelerated the poor getting poorer, and has led to thousands of abortions, unnecessary maternal deaths, thousands of abandoned children, increase of street dwellers, among other ills of society,” the PCEC said.

The PCEC position on population is the exact opposite of the Catholic Church’s stance.

According to Church officials, the idea of a burgeoning population is a myth used to scare the public into supporting artificial contraceptives.

PCEC stressed that it does not support abortion, a crime in the Philippines, because it is tantamount to murder and against the teachings of the Bible.

However, PCEC said it supports various birth control methods to prevent conception. Such action, the group said, is not a sin, because no life is harmed or created yet.

“Unborn babies, at whatever stage of pregnancy should be preserved and protected. Termination of this life is sinful and offensive to God,” PCEC said.

“But preventing pregnancy or conception is not abortion for no life has yet been conceived and there is nothing to be terminated,” it stressed.

As such, the PCEC said they support policies that “will help control the population growth.”

Instead of banning artificial, non-abortive birth control methods from public health centers, the PCEC said couples should be given comprehensive instructions on them, along with information on natural family methods.

PCEC said couples should be given a wide array of birth control methods and the right to decide what is best for them.

Not for CATHOLICS alone

Here's a very profound explanation that should enlighten a lot of people on what the SEPARATION of the CHURCH and the STATE actually means.

Commentary
Not for Catholics alone

Cebu Daily News
First Posted 12:56:00 07/25/2008

Our founding fathers, from different walks of life, were united by their opposition to “frailocracy,” which was why, as our first president was sworn into office, the altar at Malolos town was hidden behind a curtain. A hundred years later, Joseph Estrada would take his oath of office in the same church, but with the altar taking center stage.

When the bishops withdrew the Mandate of Heaven from Marcos, our development as secular nation basically came to an end. It’s no coincidence that after the EDSA People Power uprising in 1986, Catholic schools began to insist that an invocation should precede the national anthem. This would have been unthinkable from the time of our first revolution against Spain up to the New Society, but after the Miracle of EDSA, times changed.

Our flag has a triangle derived from the Masonic triangle and our national anthem enjoins us to love, and die, for native land, not God. This proclamation of a fundamental, secular identity, it seems, is intolerable to the clergy. So long as there was a residual memory of the birth of our nation and the ideas that brought that nation forth, the Catholic hierarchy had to submit.

The separation of Church and State, of course, does not mean that religion has no role in our democratic society. It only means that no religion can enjoy preferential treatment to the disadvantage of others. For example, membership in a particular church or sect can’t be a precondition for appointive or elected office. One’s faith is supposed to be neither aid nor hindrance to the exercise of citizenship. In some cases, the State has even relaxed its rules in order to satisfy the requirements of individual religious conscience, such as excusing Jehovah’s Witnesses from participating in flag ceremonies.

If our secular state treads carefully so as to ensure that religious freedom (and freedom of conscience) is respected, particularly in the case of religious practices by minorities, it is less careful about the religion practiced by the majority of Filipinos. This is what sets the question of the separation of Church and State with regard to the Catholic hierarchy apart. The faith and morals of Catholics happen to be the articles of faith of the majority – and we are a nation that subscribes to the principle that questions of policy and leadership are best solved by invoking majority rule.

Any serious Catholic is under the same obligation as any decent Filipino to defend his principles, to the death, if need be. To demand of Catholics that they restrict the application of their faith and morals to the confines of their homes and churches is essentially to ask them to commit apostasy. But it is fair and just to remind the hierarchy and the rest of the Catholic citizenry that our Republic does not exist for Catholics alone, and this means that their faith and morals cannot be made the exclusive basis for state policy. – Manuel Quezon III, Inquirer

Aide: Arroyo to highlight natural family planning in SONA

This is why we need to OUST GLORIA NOW!!!


Aide: Arroyo to highlight natural family planning in SONA

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 19:48:00 07/25/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- Unmoved by calls to review her population policy, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will highlight her preference for natural family planning in her State of the Nation Address (SONA), a Palace official said Friday.

"She will restate her position, she is consistent in her policy," Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde said at a news briefing in Malacañang.

A number of Cabinet officials, particularly Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, have urged the government to adopt what they describe as a more responsive population management policy, including the promotion of artificial birth control methods, rather than sticking to the natural family planning, the method the Catholic church is the only acceptable one, to curb the swelling population,

On Friday, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a US-based benefactor of population management programs that include artificial methods, criticized the Arroyo government for backing the church position on reproductive health.

Congress is deliberating on a reproductive health bill that would include the use of artificial birth control.

Remonde said while Arroyo is prepared to listen to all views on the issue, she is standing pat on her position, even if it is "difficult and unpopular."

Separating Church and State, fact from fiction

Passion For Reason
Separating Church and State, fact from fiction

By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:39:00 07/25/200

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Daily Inquirer front page on Tuesday featured a photo of a mother and three small children silhouetted against the light, living in a hammock under a bridge, with the fetid tide just two feet below them. I noticed that the children, presumably all hers, were spaced barely a year or two apart, with a newborn cradled in her arms and two older children, neither of whom could have been over five years old. On that same day, the latest Social Weather Stations survey reported that 14.5 million Filipinos experienced “involuntary hunger” between April and June 2008, a record high equivalent to almost three million households.

At the same time, House Speaker Prospero Nograles—proclaiming, “I am a devout Catholic”—called for a “ceasefire” in the all-out assault by the Catholic Church against the reproductive health and population control bills pending in Congress.

The good bishops talk about the sanctity and dignity of life. Living with three children under a bridge: Where is the dignity? Where is the sanctity? Do we respect life by making it difficult for that woman to plan for her family? So that her sleeping two-year-old won’t accidentally fall into the foul stream and die, if not from drowning, from swallowing poisoned water? Do we respect their dignity if we condemn them to an earthly hell where they inhale putrid air with each breath day and night?

This is not a debate about the nuances of Catholic theology. This is simply about the most dearly held norms in our Constitution, the basic distinction between truth and falsity, and plain common sense.

Hardline clergy have labeled as “evil” the sponsors of the Reproductive Health Care bills pending before Congress, and have called them “abortionists.” That is a lie.

I have read the various bills authored by Senators Rodolfo Biazon and Panfilo Lacson and Representatives Edcel Lagman and Janette Garin. I can categorically say that there is not a single mention in any bill of legalizing abortion. In contrast, a computer search shows that the bills mention the word “abortion” solely in order to reiterate that “abortion shall remain to be penalized under the Revised Penal Code and relevant jurisprudence” and to provide programs to teach people about the “proscription and hazards of abortion.”

In fact, each time they define “family planning” (so that couples may “decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children”), they always affirm that “abortion is not included as a family planning method” and that the methods “exclud[e] abortion, which is a crime.” In case the bishops still have any doubts, the authors go out of their way and affirm that “abortion remains a crime and is punishable.”

Indeed, when the bills refer to family planning programs, they actually aim “to help women avoid abortion [by] preventing unintended pregnancies and ensuring access to quality family planning methods.” They cite convincing evidence that access to contraceptives is the best way to reduce abortions.

One-third of all pregnancies in the Philippines have ended up in abortions and, in 2000 alone, they recorded 473,400 cases of induced abortions, more than 90 percent of them by married women. A survey by the poll group Social Weather Stations shows that 97 percent of Filipinos want to be able to control their fertility and plan their families—and almost 90 percent of the respondents are Catholic. One woman out of six wants family planning but can’t practice it for lack of access to family planning health services. Almost 60 percent of contraceptive users depend on government for their supply of contraceptives. If the bishops truly oppose abortion, why exclude contraceptives from the government’s family planning services when we all know that to do so will simply lead to more abortions?

The only way for the bishops to sustain their argument is to say that contraception and abortion are one and the same thing. But that is a matter internal to Church doctrine. It is binding on true believers. It cannot command nonbelievers. Not all Filipinos are Catholic, and not all Filipino Catholics subscribe to the same level of dogmatism as the local bishops’.

Our own Constitution recognizes the “right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions.” In a famous US case cited by the Philippine Supreme Court, it was said: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion ….”

Which family planning method to use is for the spouses alone—not for any government—to decide in their behalf. To confine family planning to the clergy’s approved methods is to impede that free choice.

What galls me about the raging debate is the in-your-face brashness of the Catholic clergy. Having twisted the facts, they now intimidate our secular officials to toe dogma, threatening to withhold from them the sacraments. I wonder: Do they still give communion to that bishop in Antipolo City who was found a few years back to be keeping a mistress? To the infamous plunderers in government? To all those sexual offenders referred to by no less than Pope Benedict XVI last week? The bishops must be consistent in telling the truth and in punishing sinners before they can pontificate.

Otherwise, what they show is not theological devotion but secular arrogance, the bluster of power, cocky in the knowledge that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, bereft of legitimacy and opportunistic to the core, will yield to expediency, kiss the hand that anoints, and lend the sword of an unworthy Caesar to carry out a strained—and self-defeating—reading of scripture.

There are those who believe without questioning, but there are those who question because they truly believe.

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Comments to passionforreason@gmail.com

Nograles is right

AMBIENT VOICES
By Ma. Isabel Ongpin

Nograles is right

Speaker Nograles is right, the debate on population, family planning and reproductive health should end under the polarizing and polemical circumstances that it has been reduced to. To continue it, will only add nuisance which now generates more heat than information, more emotion than reason, more rigidity than new ideas.

It is obvious that everyone has heard enough and made up their minds and will not budge. Therefore, let the legislature take up the vote on the Reproductive Health bill, let the bishops and priests and other religious leaders go to their flock and convince them of their stand and let the individuals make up their minds. In the long run, we all have to answer to our conscience. And everyone on each side of the debate should have a conscience.

Let us all be adults here and look at the facts. There is a runaway population problem in this country. The government has to address it, religious groups have to be aware of it and within their doctrinal elements come to an answer for it.

Women have long cried out that they want to limit the number of children they have. Statistics on infant mortality, abortion incidence, poverty, women’s health are on the side of addressing the population problem.

Under these circumstances, the question is reduced to how to address it. This is the crux of the problem as it goes down to natural family planning as advocated by the Church versus artificial means for family planning as advocated by others.

All things being equal, every side having had their say, people of reproductive age and varying economic means having been consulted and listened to, anyone and everyone allowed to make their own decisions, then let those decisions be permitted to be carried out.

If the answer for some is natural family planning, then those who believe in it must work to implement it. It must be a serious effort not a theoretical answer to what ails us.



The Catholic Church hierarchy here has time and again argued for it but its actions to implement it among its flock pales before their high flown rhetoric that it is the best way of addressing the problem.



If the Church involves itself in the debate, in the presentation of its doctrinal answers then it should equally involve itself in implementing what it believes in. It may solicit government help, private support, individual effort to effect the implementation. But it must do the implementation seriously and make a fundamental, inclusive and radical effort among its adherents and those it has convinced among its flock.

Otherwise, it is running interference, affecting the climate of conviviality in public discourse, and otherwise acting like an obstacle course to a solution for a serious problem. All of these in turn diminish their standing in the eyes of a democratic dispensation where religious freedom is guranteed.

Can the Church tone down its sweeping judgments and condemnations of people who believe otherwise?.

Can it please stop the distortion of people’s stands and the name-calling that it indulges in for those who think otherwise.?

They can say their piece, but please let the parameters of courtesy, respect, freedom of thought, and charity prevail. Enough of calling people who believe otherwise “evil.”

Enough of generalizing that artifical means is “abortion,” enough about threats regarding the withholding of sacraments from those publicly condemned. This is unseemly, counterproductive and uncharitable. It may intimidate but does not convince.

As for government officials, let them be reasonable and factual about the population problem. Let them not give the glib answers like exporting people away from this country, waiting for income disparity to be corrected by itself without government intervention, waiting for the time when everyone will be educated enough to vote responsibly, earn a living, be intelligent parents.

Let them be courageous and not succumb to the threats against their political and personal well-being by those who would bully rather than reason. They have their work cut out for them in all the disparities that our society has, especially the population problem. Please get to work.

We have heard enough, in fact too much. Let everyone use their conscience now to guide them on this issue. Conscience is the highest law and it should be given the freedom it deserves.

miongpin@yahoo.com

Population bill campaign intensifies ahead of Church protest

By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 03:58pm (Mla time) 07/24/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- Supporters of the proposed population management bill have intensified their campaign ahead of the Catholic Church’s simultaneous “bell ringing” slated this Friday to protest the measure.

Various non-government organizations led by the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) held a small rally in Quezon City on Thursday to push for the passage of the bill pending at the House of Representatives.

The advocates, one dressed as a bishop, paraded a coffin to symbolize “maternal death” with 10 women supposedly dying everyday due to unintended pregnancies and lack of access to reproductive health methods.

At a press conference after the rally, RHAN secretary-general Elizabeth Angsioco said the group was also planning a big protest action to counter the anti-reproductive health campaign by the Church.

She said they also started a signature campaign to further boost the support in Congress.

“We want a million signatures to really strengthen the support for the bill. We will present the signatures to the House and the Senate to show that there’s real support from the grass roots,” Angsioco said.

Some of them, she said, have also been talking to some Cabinet members to get their support for the bill.

Aside from Quezon City, Angsioco said three others -- Antipolo City, Angeles City and the province of Lanao del Sur -- have also passed a reproductive health code in their respective areas.

Despite the strong lobbying of the Church against the bill, Professor Danton Remoto, chairperson of “Ang Ladlad,” remained confident that the proposed legislation would pass “under the good the guidance of God.”

Addressing the Catholic bishops, Remoto said, “Wala kaming balak maging [We have no intention of becoming] celibate. Gusto naming tikman ang luto ng Diyos.”

“And we’re cocksure that this bill, if not today, in the days to come will pass under the good guidance of God,” he said.

In defending the measure, Remoto pointed out that the use of condoms was important to stop population growth.

UP Professor Ernesto Pernia, who has two priest brothers, criticized the Catholic Church for being “so conceited.”

“The problem, I think, is that the Catholic bishops, the Catholic hierarchy, has been developing hubris. They have become so conceited because the government is courting them,” Pernia said in the same forum.

He then cautioned the Church from issuing “dogmatic” statements about the issue of contraceptives.

Special Announcement!!!!!

Friends,

We will be having a whole-day Reproductive Health Fair in Quezon City tomorrow from 9:00am to 5:00pm to make a statement regarding the Big Rally of the Catholic Church Against the Reproductive Health Bill that is being planned for 2nd reading in the Lower House.

The rally/parade will start at 9:00am at the corner of Kalayaan Ave., and Elliptical Road, QC PLEASE WEAR WHITE.

The parade will end at the Adarna Restaurant along Kalayaan Ave. where the whole-day affair will take place.

A short program will be held after the parade in the morning at the venue. In the afternoon, numerous activities are lined up so please drop by any time.

Please read and disseminate the press release written below of this message.

We hope you can join us in any ways you can - send your letter of support, talk to your parish, to to your community, be there tomorrow, be the light for everyone.

Thank you,

Ging Cristobal

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Trivia!
The church has been using this slogan since 2001 -

D.E.A.T.H.

D - divorce
E - euthanasia
A - abortion
T - total contraceptive
H - homosexual relations

Fact:
Aside from the Anti-discrimination bill that is being lobbied by LGBT groups and the Comprehensive Reproductive Health bill being lobbied by Repro Health groups,

There are no bills on divorce, euthanasia, abortion nor same-sex marriage.

intrigued? read on...

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PRESS STATEMENTS

1. Group slams Church stand on repro health bill

We, members of different private and non-government organizations, have banded together to counter efforts by some members of the Catholic Church to muddle the issue on the Reproductive Health Bill filed in Congress. Instead of using the light of reason to study the two bills, they claim that the Church has pointed out issues that are not in the bills.

They are spreading vicious lie that abortion is at the heart of the Reproductive Health Bill.

Nothing can be farther from the truth. Reproductive health is a basic need. It promotes the well-being of women and in the end saves lives. It emphasizes family planning, maternal and child health and nutrition as well as prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections and sexually transmitted infections. It wants to give access to information and counseling on sexuality and sexual health, as well as breast and reproductive tract cancers and other women’s diseases. It also aims to ensure the reproductive health of men and adolescents, as well as end violence against women and prevent infertility and sexual disorder.

The Reproductive Health Bill, in the end, aims to raise the quality of life of Filipino women. In this regard, we want to stress that Catholics should have a choice and not be confused by the welter of disinformation coming from some segments of the Catholic Church. They should not twist the truth for, as any good Catholic knows, the truth should set us free.

Being mature people of faith, the Filipino Catholics should be allowed to have the freedom of choice. They should be allowed to decide; the Church should not infantilize the people by deciding for them. Moreover, we expect the government to help promote reproductive health care services to the people. It is a commitment of this government, as embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that should be reached by 2015. The Philippines is a signatory to this agreement in the 2005 World Summit in New York.

Unfortunately, President Arroyo has chosen to turn a blind eye to the call of the times for reproductive health. The refusal of some Catholic clergy to give communion to congressmen who would push for the bill is tantamount to political blackmail. And they have joined forces to put up a wall of resistance against this Bill.

Let us give the Filipino Catholics a choice – one borne of a deep study of the situation at hand and a cold analysis of the issues. There is no need to foist the fear of fire and brimstone, or the withholding of one’s right to receive the Holy Sacrament of Communion. Only gangsters and people of lesser faith resort to blackmail, harassment, and intimidation.
We ask the Catholic Church to let the people free

2. Pro_RH Legislators: The People’s Champions

The Filipino people need champions.

Champions in Congress to craft policies that respond to the needs of their constituents. We need them to address pressing issues through laws so that pro-people and pro-poor programs are implemented, rights are respected and, therefore, lives become better.

A national policy on reproductive health (RH) is one of our needs. At a time when prices of basic commodities and services are soaring amidst widespread poverty, ordinary people urgently need all the help they can get.

Wage increases, tax breaks, food and electricity- consumption subsidies are good but not enough. These initiatives are not sustainable. With the ever-increasing scarcity of resources, government will eventually not be able to adequately address the needs of the people.

Legislators have to deal with the need of our families, especially the poor to plan their lives. RH information and services are needed to enable people to make informed and intelligent decisions that will: save women¢s lives, facilitate having children that parents can provide for, prepare the youth to handle responsibilities that go with having relationships, and empower men to realize and use the various options available to them in planning their families.

The existence of such urgent needs cannot be denied. In the City of Manila alone where RH services have been virtually absent for the past eight years, throngs of residents flocked to the Tondo Sports Complex last Friday to avail of free family planning information and services offered by NGOs and the City Health Department. Manila residents in poor communities acted on their need at the first opportunity offered them.

An increasing number of local government units (LGUs) are also stepping up to address this need as evidenced by the passage of RH ordinances in Aurora province, Sulu, Olongapo, and Quezon City to name a few. Moreover, there are LGUs that are presently processing their own RH ordinances.

In Congress, we have RH champions. These legislators have taken action based on the facts that:

10 Filipino women die daily due to pregnancy and childbirth complications;
3 out of 4 of these women who die are aged 15-19 years old; and
Internationally, 99% of all women who die from such causes come from developing countries.

We, RH advocates laud the courage, determination and foresight of these legislators to work for measures that offer strategic solutions to current crises.

Like many of our people, we are one with our legislators who stand with ordinary Filipinos; with women on the issue of RH. As shown by the 2004 Pulse Asia survey:


86% of respondents support candidates with programs for women¢s health;
82% supports candidates who are in favor of couples¢ free choice of family planning methods;
82% considers candidates supportive of a law on population as worthy of their votes; and
83% favors candidates who support allocating funds for family planning.

We ask our legislators not to give up on our needs--not to give up on our rights.

We ask our legislators to continue being our champions until that day when all Filipinos, rich and poor, shall have the opportunities to pursue a life of quality.

3. Fight for L.I.F.E.

The call from Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus Dosado to deny communion to "anti-life legislators" has been hitting the newspapers lately.
This position is consistent with the "Stop D.E.A.T.H. (divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total reproductive health, and homosexuality)
Campaign" of the Catholic Church for the 40th anniversary of the Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) on July 25.

We are aghast at how some bishops and other religious leaders are using an antiquated 40 year-old encyclical (Humanae Vitae) in
spreading disinformation on the reproductive health bills and the anti-discrimination bill filed in Congress. The bishops choose to
demonize these bills and look for bogeymen that are not at all present: abortion in the Reproductive Health Bills and same-sex
marriage in the Anti-Discrimination Bill.

In the Catholic community, bishops are supposed to be the symbol of truth and morality, yet they propagate blatant lies and have yet
again threatened the policymakers as well as the general public with "excommunication" if they do not agree with their stand. This
makes us wonder: What are the real reasons for the Church's antagonism towards these bills?

We do not see the logic in the Catholic Church's opposition to reproductive health, particularly to its ten elements:
1. Family Planning
2. Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition
3. Prevention and Management of Abortion Complications
4. Prevention and
Treatment of Reproductive Tract Infections/ Sexually Transmitted Infections/ HIV/AIDS
5. Education and Counseling on Sexuality and Sexual Health
6. Breast and Reproductive Tract Cancers and Other Gynecological Conditions
7. Men's Reproductive Health
8. Adolescent Reproductive Health
9. Ending Violence Against Women and
10. Prevention and Treatment of Infertility and SexualDisorder.

These are geared for the betterment of the people and country.

We expect our national government to prioritize the needs of the Filipino people. The country's bleak situation is made even worse bythe government's refusal to promote the provision of reproductive health care services to the people. The Philippines has committed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 in eradicating extreme poverty, which includes promoting gender equality, reduction of child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV & AIDS—a commitment reiterated by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) during the 2005 World Summit in New York. This is nothing but mere hypocritical grandstanding done at the expense of the lives of our women and children. The stance GMA has taken on the issue of family planning or birth control—that of a devout Catholic—turns out to be politically motivated. She is siding with the bishops because there is no political advantage to be gained in doing otherwise.

The arrogance of some Catholic Church leaders and GMA herself has made them blind to the plight of the masses whose suffering is further aggravated by the current food and economic crises. This plight has been brought about by a confluence of factors, including a lack of access to reproductive health care services. The bishops' attempts to block the bills' passage through political blackmail— dangling the Holy Eucharist in the faces of supportive legislators— hit only the poor women, children, and families who are at the losing end of the deal. This makes us think: What now is the greater sin?

We do not believe in the viability of the "Stop D.E.A.T.H." campaign of the Catholic Church, because it is neither scientific nor mass-oriented.

To this, we answer: "Fight for L.I.F.E. (good Leadership, Inclusiveness, Freedom of choice, and Equality for all)."

Aside from curtailing people's access to reproductive health information and services, we believe that the "Stop D.E.A.T.H" campaign of the Catholic Church will only open the floodgates to hate crimes against the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) community, reproductive health advocates, and ordinary citizens who believe that choosing what is good for them is a basic
right.

We therefore beseech the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to stop their political blackmail and for the national government to do their avowed task of creating policies that respond to the real needs of the people. We cannot afford to merely oppose measures and not offer real, practical, humane, and responsive solutions, not when millions of lives are at stake.

We have lost confidence in GMA long before this issue, with her dirty record of political maneuvering. Time and again, she has shown that the interest of the ordinary Filipinos does not matter to her.

No to "Stop D.E.A.T.H."!
Fight for L.I.F.E.!
No to hypocrisy!
Oust Gloria!

MORE NEWS

CBCP mobilizing forces to campaign against birth control
By Sandy Araneta / Monday, July 14, 2008 / Philippine Star

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is mobilizing its forces to campaign against birth control proposals pending in Congress.

According to Fr. Melvin Castro, CBCP’s executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life (ECFL), the bishops decided to lobby before congressmen and explain the position of the Catholic Church on family planning and birth control issues.

“God willing, once our bishops would have a dialogue with these lawmakers, and through this mobilization, I hope they would think more deeply about these bills which they are signing,” Castro said over the Church-run Radyo Veritas. Castro said the bishops would lead the information campaign against pending bills on birth control that is considered against the teachings of the Church.

When asked in particular on the pending bills in Congress, Castro said lawmakers have already consolidated the proposals into a single bill for “responsible parenthood” in the apparent effort to make it appear that the legislation was meant to promote public welfare.

“I will encapsulate this. Congress has consolidated these bills, on reproductive health, and responsible parenthood. These are all very positive, But in the back of these bills, it is not,” Castro said.

Castro claimed a provision in the one of the bills being pushed is to require sex education to be taught from fifth grade. “Most alarming is this one. If we would go to rural health centers today, this is a reality, there are no antibiotics, not even a paracetamol. But according to this bill, a contraceptive will be considered as a special medicine. And this should be universally accessible to all,” he said.

He said contraception, or any means to control our bodies, is not in accordance with the teachings of the Church.

Malacañang, for its part, maintained the government’s population management and family planning programs had been effective and relevant amid warnings that the policies on the issue could put the country’s economy to the brink.

Lawmakers have warned the country’s current population of 90 million could hit 100 million in the next five to seven years if effective birth control measures cannot be implemented. With about 85 percent of Filipinos Catholic, artificial birth control remains a sensitive issue as the Church strongly opposes any means other than natural methods in family planning.

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza and Deputy Presidential Spokesman Anthony Golez defended President Arroyo’s population management policies after some groups and former President Fidel Ramos hit the administration for its ambiguity on the issue of family planning because of its subservience to the Church