Saturday, May 28, 2011
A NON-GOVERNMENT organization said Saturday that the voting public "should learn its lesson" in the next elections and withdraw support from politicians who proposed measures that restrict access to contraceptives.
According to EnGendeRights, these legislators include Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Ralph Recto and Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., and Representatives Roilo Golez (Paranaque), Pablo Garcia (Cebu), Rufus Rodirguez (Cagayan de Oro) and Amado Bagatsing (Manila).
"Those who believe in respecting, promoting, and upholding the rights of women should use their power as citizens to vote for people who will uphold the rights of women. Women are the ones who bear the brunt of the delayed passage of the RH (reproductive health) law and any restriction on their access to the full range of contraceptive methods," lawyer Clara Rita Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights, said in a press statement.
On Monday, the Senate bills providing for the safety and protection of the unborn will be heard in the Committees on Youth, Women and Family Relations, Constitutional Amendments, and Revision of Codes and Laws.
Last week, the anti-choice bill of Representative Bagatsing was heard in the House Committee on Revision of Laws with Golez, Garcia, and Rodriguez supporting it.
"These bills effectively equate contraception with abortion and restrict access to contraceptives," Padilla said. "Legislators, justices, and other government officials who are pushing for the protection of the unborn have no business to sit in government. As government officials, they should uphold our constitution which guarantees the separation of church and state and non-establishment of religion."
Representatives Golez, Garcia, Rodriguez and Bagatsing are among the 38 congressmen who are in the list of interpellators at the House of Representatives on the RH measure.
Padilla's group stressed that restricting access to artificial contraceptives is an imposition of one's religious morality on the whole Filipino populace.
EnGendeRights also said that these "anti-choice legislators" have also been continuously spreading disinformation by claiming that contraceptives are abortifacients.
"What the anti-choice are propagating is not based on medical science. What government officials should bear in mind is their duty to raise discourse to the level of international human rights standards, realities women face, public health, medical science, and legal reform," Padilla said.