The RH Bill: A chance for reproductive justice

The Philippine Congress is set to vote on the reproductive health bill. As in the last 16 years, the day can render the bill as a political threat due to the enigmatic but non-existent “Catholic vote” and therefore dispose of it as just another pile of papers.

But Congress can also make history by breaking free from a modern frailocracy (meaning, rule of the friars), acknowledging poverty in the faces and bodies who endure it, and therefore making sense of democracy.

More importantly, it can make a difference in the region as it gives reproductive justice a chance to inform governance.

Population and poverty

The Philippines has been used as an example to speak of democracy, with certain administrations vocally supporting the opposition leaders and political prisoners of Burma and Malaysia – Aung San Suu Kyi and Anwar Ibrahim, respectively.

Yet ours remains a fractured democracy marred by contradictions, where class interests have derailed land reform through redistribution, and where extrajudicial executions still happen.

No wonder such contradiction has blown right in our faces, with many a political scientist pointing to the Philippines’ burgeoning poverty and ballooning population.

The Philippines’ per capita income of US$4,073 pales in comparison to the $9,396 of Thailand which has nearly 67 million people. It’s also lower than the $4,325 of the most populous country in the region and largest archipelago in the world, Indonesia.

Today, more than 45% of the more than 90 million Filipinos consider themselves poor. Worse, 11 mothers die every day because of pregnancy complications.

According to Guttmacher Institute, around 68% of such complications arise from induced abortion resulting from unplanned pregnancies common among poor women. These are some simple facts which the Catholic Church, other like-minded religious hierarchies, and the faithful among some politicians who disapprove of the reproductive health bill refuse to recognize.

Domino effect

Trouble is the 11 daily deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. Beyond it are infants who will not be able to reach their first year, older children who will have to stop schooling to care for their younger and motherless siblings, and kids who will endure the violence of fathers under immense pressure to support their families.

And then there will be frustrated children who will decide to leave their houses, stop schooling, try to raise a family but without the wherewithal to manage their bodies and lives. They will, in turn, have their own children and expose themselves to the same risks and dangers.

And the cycle of danger and death continues.

RH in Asean

Undoubtedly, Asean neighbors have kept their economic scale proportional to their population size. Some RH bill advocates, including Walden Bello of partylist Akbayan, and the bill’s principal author Edcel Lagman, have cited population management as among the reasons for the RH bill.

The religious however have branded the RH as a tool for “population control” to boost their own campaign.

But there is more beyond economic progress and optimum population management, whichever is the cause and the consequence. The reproductive health services of the welfare states of Singapore and Brunei appear to be more in line with natural and human resource constraints. In Singapore, there are indications of sex-selective abortion because of a deep-seated preference for boys than girls.

In Thailand, reproductive health services are critical to its tourism industry as the country continues to be hounded by sexually transmitted diseases. In Vietnam, abortion is part of public health services but subsidized services target married couples of a certain reproductive bracket.

The RH bill can of course potentially benefit Manila’s own prostituted women and sex workers, regardless of how they define themselves. But this RH bill does not cater to any industry, whether legal or illicit.

Nor is it an imposition of the state for the purpose of economic expediency and population management even if it may have a positive effect on the economy and population growth in the long run.

Rights

The RH bill is all about our right to self-determination – how we would keep our bodies free from risks, harm and violence; how we would like to bear and raise our children and keep them healthy and safe; how we can define our gender identities and engage in relationships, without compromising our sexual and reproductive well-being.

It is about access to conditions that can facilitate the exercise of this right – ensuring the availability of correct and complete information about our bodies and a suite of sexual and reproductive health services – all of these in accordance with international human rights standards.

The RH bill is what a majority of poor couples, especially women, have been demanding. It is also what several social movements and experts have been advocating.

In the last Social Weather Station survey, 70% of Filipinos said they are in favor of the bill, discrediting the “Catholic vote” bait.

The RH bill is about the state, exercising its role as a primary duty-bearer to prevent the deaths of 11 mothers each day, unplanned pregnancies, deaths of children under two years, and the many other harsh consequences that hit the poor, women, and girls the hardest. The RH bill is about reproductive justice.

Reproductive justice

Reproductive justice has begun as a critique of the framework of choice in women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services, particularly among African-Americans and minority women in the United States.

While women may assert their choice to have an abortion, their access remains circumscribed by the availability of public health services, their income, immigration status, and support networks.

In such a context, the choice framework becomes more of a white, middle-class privilege. Reproductive justice insists that for women to access their sexual, reproductive and health rights, they must be given the “enabling conditions” which can facilitate such access.

Further, it extends to movement-building and strengthening. As Loretta Ross of “Sister Song” describes, “Reproductive justice is no universal solution, but a fresh approach to creating unifying and intersectional language with which to build bridges.”

Seeing the RH bill as reproductive justice does not romanticize the thousands of women who have died and their children who have suffered in the absence of their mothers. Instead, it makes sense out of the tragedy and in turn, engenders chances of a better life for the next generation. – Rappler.com

 

Nina Somera is Filipina who supports the RH bill. She is post-graduate student of Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines. She lives in Thailand. She can be reached at nina.somera@gmail.com

For more updates on the issue of the RH Bill, view our #RHBill Debate Microsite. 

Read on for other views on the RH Bill debate:

Yes to RH Bill	No to RH Bill
Should Congress and Church be afraid of RH bill?	RH bill hates life
Pia Cayetano: 5 misconceptions about the RH bill	RH bill ‘culture’: danger or power?

More in #RHBill Debate:

• Nobel Prize winner contradicts CBCP
• Fact Sheet: House Bill 4244 on Reproductive Health
• UN weighs in on RH Bill 
• WHO on RH bill: No politics, just facts
• RH bill backers hit bishops’ ‘science’
• Catholics clash over controversial RH bill
• Poverty, scarcity and the rule of the Catholic Church
• Minority solons withdraw support for RH bill