PHNix Network Advocate

Imagine a doctor or health worker being sentenced to a prison term simply because he or she refused to prescribe — or refer someone who would prescribe — an abortifacient “contraceptive”. Imagine being fined and jailed for staying true to your pro-life convictions. Could that ever happen in the Philippines?

Well it just might if the latest “reproductive health” bill is passed in the Philippine Congress!

(Image on the right is by Matthew Bowden)

The bill, known as the “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2007″, has a number of highly objectionable provisions. Here are just a few of them:

• Section 9 (Hospital-Based Family Planning) specificially subsidizes the use of IUDs (insertion of the device is performed in a hospital). The IUD, however, is NOT a contraceptive. It is an ABORTIFACIENT. The IUD does not prevent ovulation. Rather, it works by affecting the uterine wall so that it prevents a fertilized ovum — which is already a human being — from implanting. The Philippine Constitution specifically protects human life from the moment of conception. The IUD clearly violates that principle.
• Section 16 (Ideal Family Size) defines the “ideal family size” as having two children. This idea has no scientific basis whatsoever and further perpetuates the myth of “overpopulation”, which has been discredited around the world. Poverty in the Philippines is NOT caused by overpopulation, but by massive government corruption and economic mismanagement. This so-called “ideal” number of children is also below replacement level, which is 2.1. Should this be be widely practiced, the Philippines will soon be faced with the prospect of population stagnation and population ageing. There are no economic structures or even agreed-upon solutions to counteract the grave negative economic effects of such a situation in the Philippines.
• Section 21 (Prohibited Acts), number 5 mandates that any health care provider who refuses to dispense certain services or information based on religious grounds (for example, a Catholic health worker who will not dispense IUDs or other abortifacients like the birth control pill), is still forced to recommend a “patient” to someone who will perform the objectionable deed! To make such a referral, however, still makes the conscientious objector an accomplice in the objectionable act. Those who refuse to make such a referral are threatened with 1-6 months imprisonment and a fine of P10,000-50,000. This provision is therefore highly coercive and tramples upon religious freedom.

Ramming Through Congress

The bill, with its deadly and corecive agenda, is currently being RAILROADED through the Philippine Congress in a highly irregular manner. This is detailed in a report (shown below this post) from the Bishops-Legislators Caucus on the status of this and other similar bills in the Philippine legislature. Take note that the consolidated reproductive health bill passed the Health Committee of the Lower House in just two minutes, without any debate or discussion! There was no technical working group formed to make the substitite bill, which is in violation of a Constitutional requirement. Something smells rotten in Congress!

This situation has all the elements of a deadly, tragic farce: a bill that is coercive, has no scientific basis, and violates the Constitution is being rammed down our throats without the people in general even knowing aboiut it. Talk about being shafted!

What are we going to do about it?

Link to text of Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2007
(http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgdp8vjs_4t9kmvwgr)

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This may sound unbelievable, but it seems that people can now donate money to Planned Parenthood to specifically abort babies from minority groups.

A number of videos have been posted on Youtube containing recordings of calls to Planned Parenthood centers. In these videos, a donor asks if it is possible to donate money for an explicitly racist purpose (such as reducing the number of black children in a community). The Planned Parenthood employees inform the donors that this is definitely possible and gladly accept the donations.

Here are the links to some of these videos.

• Planned Parenthood Racism Investigation Part I: Idaho.
• Planned Parenthood Racism Investigation Part II: Oklahoma and New Mexico (In Part II there’s a clip of Barack Obama thanking Planned Parenthood!)

The videos were made by Live Action Films. Here’s a link to their channel on Youtube.

The videos, of course, sparked protests from outraged Americans. Here’s a link to some photos by the De-Fund Planned Parenthood Campaign.

Evidently, Planned Parenthood will take money from anyone for clearly racist purposes. Given the group’s history, that isn’t surprising. It’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a devoted rascist and openly promoted eugenics — the idea that human hereditary traits can be improved through direct intervention. The article, “The Truth About Margaret Sanger“, traces the groups roots:

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The latest “crisis” to hit the Philippines is the much talked-about rice “shortage”, and as expected, the advocates of the Culture of Death are once again blaming “overpopulation” as the culprit. Not only is this factually wrong, but it is also a despicable attempt to turn attention away from the real cause of the crisis: massive corruption and irresponsible, long-standing mismanagement of the economy.

Politics of Distraction

Research shows that the GMA administration is perceived to be one of the most corrupt in Philippine history. The Philippines scores way low, at 131 out of 180 nations, in Transparency International’s 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index. A recent national survey found many Filipinos think that Gloria Arroyo is the country’s most corrupt leader, more so than former President-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, as reported in the December 12, 2007, Sun Star story “Survey says Arroyo most corrupt president“:

The nationwide survey by independent pollster Pulse Asia found that 42 percent of Filipinos believed Arroyo is the country’s most corrupt leader, compared to 35 percent for Marcos.

Lest anyone miss the point, massive corruption has serious effects on the economy and the delivery of government services. Funds that should be going into education, salaries and housing for our soldiers and civil servants, infrastructure, health, agricultural support, and social services ends up in the pockets of those who don’t deserve it. Is it any wonder then that we lack classrooms and texbooks, have underpaid soldiers and policemen, inadequate primary health care, and poor, underproductive farmers?

Another problem — which, to be fair, was allowed by previous administrations — was the insistence on debt servicing, including even the repayment of questionable loans. This has effectively emaciated government’s ability to make critical capital investments in the nation’s industries and infrastructure.

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February is ProLife month. So that means this post is a lot later than it should be. Still, I’ve put together some suggestions thatordinary people can do this month — or any time of the year — to promote a Culture of Life.

1. Expose the lie that contraception can lead to fewer abortions. The exact opposite is true. There is information on that issue in the ProLife Philippines website, LifeSiteNews, Human Life International, Population Research Institute, and many others. Download and pass this information around via e-mail, text messages, instant messaging, and if you can afford to, print them out as flyers and handouts.

2. Vote and speak out against the authors and supporters of the anti-life bills in the Senate and in Congress. These include Rep. Lagman, Rep. Remulla and Sen. Biazon (not sure if Biazon will run again though). Write to your local and national legislators and oppose the various “reproductive health” ordinances which are promoting the contraceptive mentality that eventually leads to abortion.

3. Make a small contribution to ProLife Philippines. You can also subscribe to their magazine, Love Life. Help them educate our people on the many issues involved. Education is key.

4. Most important, make a firm resolution to resist irresponsible behavior and be faithful to your Church and your spouse. No one is perfect, but we still have to try.

These suggestions are not national or global in scale, but can make a real difference when enough people carry them out.

General Objectives Related to a Culture fo Life

Here are some more general goals that are related to building a Culture of Life. I post hese in the hope others can come up with more specific suggestions to attain them.

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The culture of death has been relentless in its advocacy of the population control myth, contraception, and — eventually — abortion. Philippine Local Government Units (LGUs) have become successful targets for so-called “reproductive health” measures that are disingeniously crafted to appear as beneficial programs but are actually used to push abortifacient contraceptives and value-neutral sexuality among minors.

Such deadly measures have already crept nto the programs of some LGUs. These include Aurora Province, Paracelis and Sagada, Mountain Province, Lebak, Sultan Kudarat, Ubay, Bohol, Carmen, Ifugao, and Olongapo City.

Yet another assault on life and the family is taking place in Quezon City in the form of the Reproductive Health and Population Management Ordinance sponsored by District 1 Councilor Joseph Juico.

Fighting for Life

The fight for life, however, is being fought in many small battles by unsung heroes who are willing to take a stand — often at great personal risk — against the culture of death. This drama repeated itself late last year as ordinary citizens stood up to oppose the Juico ordinance.

The Committee on Laws of the Quezon City Council conducted its first public hearing on the proposal on the morning of December 18, 2007. Committee chairman, District 4 Councilor Jesus ‘Bong’ Suntay, presided over the hearing. Councilors Dorothy Delarmente (Dist. 1), Joseph Juico (Dist. 1), Jorge Banal, Jr. (Dist. 3), Antonio Inton, Jr. (Dist. 4), and Edcel Lagman, Jr. (Dist. 4) were also present.

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The link below shows one of the preferred methods for murdering an unborn baby. The method is called “suction and curettage”.

What you will see is mostly a set of drawings, but knowing that a little baby is being painfully torn apart can bring tears to your eyes. The diagram is copyrighted so I cannot post it on this site, but you can simply follow the link to see it.

URL: http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/medical/suctionweb.jpg

There are those that want to legalize this horror in the Philippines. Vacuum machines used in abortions were imported a few years ago. Abortifacient “birth control” drugs are already being sold.

Will we allow this madness to continue?

The Victims

Below are images of more victims of abortion.

Baby killed at 7 weeks:

Source: http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/07week/aborted07-02.jpg

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“Humanity is rushing towards the future. But where are we headed?”

If you can’t view the video from here, here’s the link: The Human Race

The Population Research Institute (PRI) is looking at new ways to reach out to the online generation. Other videos by the organization can be found at this YouTube Channel: Colinpri1

Here is a video about PRI, the group that produced the previous video:

(Static link to the above video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykQVxWQpZzA)

Help save the human race before it murders more of itself. Blog about these videos on your Multiply and Facebook sites. Tell your friends about them.

More Catholics are parting ways with human rights group Amnesty International because of its new policy on abortion. Amnesty International abandoned its neutral stance, and is now committed to promoting access to abortion in some cases. In response, just last week, Catholic school groups in Scotland were thinking about withdrawing their support for Amnesty International, joining others who have done the same — many of whom have been loyal supporters for years.

This is not surprising. Amnesty International is supposed to defend human rights — everyone’s rights. Well, unborn children have rights too, and the most essential right is the right to life. Without it, other rights cannot be enjoyed. The fact that Amnesty International has betrayed its commitment to defending the rights of the most defenseless persons in the world (the unborn) should cause Catholics — indeed everyone — to pause and examine where our loyalties lie and to whom we give our support. We ought to examine those groups with which we are affiliated and make sure we are not unwittingly compromising our faith and principles.

Sadly, there are those who would pretend that unborn children are not human beings. To answer that notion quickly, let me quote Peter Kreeft, a philosopher who presents a convincing, purely logical argument for believing that the unborn are human beings. This is taken from the article, “The Apple Argument Against Abortion“:

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As it does periodically, the claim that a high abortion rate can be reduced through even more vigorous population control using artificial contraceptives has resurfaced lately. This time it came in the form of statements within a news report on the number of abortions every year in the Philippines. The report put the annual abortion rater at around 400,000!

That number is truly scandalous in a country that is supposed to be predominantly Catholic. It is, as one Filipino writer penned in “The Monumental Modern-day Filipino Holocaust“, a “mockery of Christ’s teachings”.

But granted that we are against abortion, is contraception the way to prevent it?

The Big Lie

While it may at first seem obvious that preventing so-called “unwanted” pregnancies should lessen the number of abortions, the opposite is in fact true. The contraceptive and “safe sex” mindset leads to increased promiscuity and a false confidence that contraceptives are truly effective. This, of course leads to more contraceptive failures since the total number of sexual encounters increases. And this, in turn, leads to more people resorting to abortion as a backup method to contraception.

This deadly dynamic is outlined in more detail by Rev. Thomas J Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, in the video “Does Contraception Prevent Abortion?” If you can’t view the video, a transcript of part of Fr. Euteneuer’s message is below:

Let’s first consider one basic fact: Abortion is a multi-billion dollar business, and no business wants to reduce its bottom line. While you and I work towards eliminating abortion, the abortion industry has a vested interest in increasing those numbers. More abortions simply mean more profit. Granted, some embrace abortion for other reasons, but profit is the bottom line of the abortion business. In 2004 Planned Parenthood made about $90 million in revenues just selling abortion to American women.

And, their clients: women with unexpected and unwanted pregnancies.

Given this client base, there are three main reasons why the abortion industry needs contraception:

The first is that the increase of contraceptive use increases the amount of promiscuity in a culture. Contraception severs the link between sexual union and childbearing. No longer is sexual activity the exclusive domain of marriage but can be treated as a recreational activity supposedly without the responsibility of children. The so-called unwanted pregnancies that result from a promiscuous contraceptive culture are what drive the demand for abortion. Remember — the more promiscuity, the more unwanted pregnancies there are, and the more unwanted pregnancies, the more abortions there will be.

Secondly, all methods of contraception fail to prevent pregnancy a certain percentage of the time either through flaws in the method or through misuse. People have been so indoctrinated with the “safe sex” message that the potential for contraceptive failure is never even considered — until it happens of course — and then, faced with a crisis, people turn to
quick fix solutions to escape the problem that was created by contraception in the first place. According to the Guttmacher Association, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, close to 60% of all women going into abortion mills do so because their contraception has failed. In other words, they are using abortion as a back-up to failed contraception.

Finally, contraception does not prevent abortion because contraception is, in many cases, a form of abortion. Medical science informs us that all hormonal methods of contraception may actually cause abortions at the earliest stages of pregnancy due to their chemical assault on the lining of the uterus which forbids the implantation of a newly-conceived baby a certain percentage of the time. That’s chemical abortion, and in the end we have the same result as surgical abortion: the death of an innocent human being.

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Olongapo Councilor JC delos Reyes fights the good fight.

“

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

”

– Matthew 5:13-16

In these days of paralyzing political correctness, it’s refreshing to see someone stand up for the truth and say it like it is. There are just too many unfounded claims and unchallenged popular assumptions (quite often promoted by vested interests) which our people unthinkingly swallow, hook line and sinker.

Overpopulation is just one example of these popular myths foisted upon the Third World by those who can profit from its acceptance. Peddling abortifacient contraceptives, condoms, and eventually abortion services is a billion dollar industry. Killing babies is big business.

But now the overpopulation bogey is being debunked in Olongapo by one brave soul who has chosen to take a stand — alone if necessary — and to speak the truth. That proverbial “voice in the wilderness” is Councilor John Carlos G. de los Reyes, the only one of the 27 candidates fielded for various elective positions by the Ang Kapatiran Party in the last election to win a seat.

A post on the party website’s home page, “JC delos Reyes Opposes the Olongapo City Repro Health Code“, summarized (in too few words) JC’s lonely fight:

Recently, the City council of Olongapo met to pass the Reproductive Health Code. JC was the lone opposition to the code for reasons explained in the privilege speech he delivered. (Click here to read JC’s privilege speech )

Needless to say, the code was passed with a vote of 11 to 1, JC being the only one who voted against. We laud and support JC for standing up for our party’s stand on the issue.

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