I Am for the RH Bill

Hole of Justice

by Peter G. Jimenea

I am for the RH Bill

 

In August 1969, Jerome Lejeune, a French doctor and world-renowned expert in human genetics was awarded by the American Society of  Human Genetics the William Allen Memorial Award, the highest distinction that can be granted to a geneticist.

 

It is credited to his major work on “mongolism” published in 1959, a condition that affects one in every six hundred fifty children called “Down Syndrome.” Learning about his discovery, thousands of families around the world with kids suffering from Down Syndrome come to him for treatment.

 

He helped them understand and accept their kids whom he said are created from God’s image. Due to their mental handicap, they badly need love and affection. But the American medical society during that time has the tendency to resort to abortion to prevent affected babies from being born.

 

They claim that it is cruel and inhuman to allow the poor child to come into this world. Britain followed the US in legalizing the screening for Down’s syndrome and its “treatment” by abortion. So, the media battle in France extended to the abortion of “unwanted children.”

 

These countries are sharing the theory that “A baby does not legally become a person until it is born and the woman has also the right to do what she wants with her body.” It was molded under the pretext of scientific rigor, a point of view in which God has no place.

 

The good they say, although it does not conform to the Law of God, it obviates future child problem of the family and efficient to stop the coming of unwanted children.  The bad is that it interferes with material progress that a mongoloid is no longer a person created from the image of God to love Him for all eternity.

 

Church leaders disagreed with this theory on the premise that life is sacred. This is shared by devotees and opposition to the RH Bill, who to date, also believe that sperm has already life in it. In modern science it is half-true. A television remains an idle tv set unless driven by a power to become operational in showing pictures on the screen.

True, a veterinarian can send a dozen of cattle from Iloilo to Palawan using only an envelope as carrier. But inside the envelope is a bull’s sperm for “artificial insemination” to produce that dozen calves. If we believe the theory that the sperm has life, then that bull’s sperm is only half-true and will remain half-true until injected into a cow’s womb to develop into embryo that form into a calf.

 

The embryo is a living thing in its early development formed by the inter-action of the male’s sperm inside the woman’s womb through harmonious relationship or, in some cases, by-forced sexual intercourse. Contraceptives and condom can prevent an embryo’s development. This prevention is not abortion.

 

So what is wrong with the RH Bill when the people had long been using oral contraceptives and condoms? These only prevent the development of embryo in a woman’s womb by disallowing the man’s egg to penetrate and to form as such. This belies abortion as what the oppositions’ earlier claim hinted at.

 

If we consider the Constitutional doctrine in the separation of the Church and the State, this RH Bill deals more on the latter’s problem about the welfare of its citizens. Other than the widening economic disparity between the rich and the poor, this is a primary concern of women, too.

 

The sad scenario at pedia-wards of public hospitals in this poor country bleeds out hearts. The sick and dying infants are counting. Those opposed to the RH Bill should ask from the government free or affordable and accessible health services for the poor rather than support their adding of more children in the family..

 

If unwanted children of poor families survived, what good promise of tomorrow awaits them? Unemployment is the number one problem of poor people in slum areas. Corruption is another disdainful factor that every time they asked for help from the government, they always end up badly-disillusioned.

 

If life is sacred, the opposition should look for solution to the non-stop number of crying poor mothers frequently seen on television screen begging for help to save the life of their dying babies.  Regret comes late, but awareness to consequences of having too many kids in the family is never too late. Now you know why..…see the title!