Right to choose vs right to life

The most common ground cited for the passage of the RH bill is the alleged need for family planning of couples especially the poor. For this purpose, the proponents say it is necessary for them particularly the women to be properly informed of their sexual and reproductive health rights and to have access to reproductive health services so that they can exercise their right to a well informed choice.

The RH bill thus aims to enshrine in our legal system the reproductive health rights allowing women to choose from an entire range of family planning methods including artificial means that cause abortion. This is the pro-choice stance widely recognized in the US that links the right to have abortion to “reproductive health” which is now the official policy of the Obama administration. And it is a policy that Obama aims to spread to other countries. In fact one of his first moves was to restore taxpayer funding to groups that promote or perform abortion overseas. In his first budget to be submitted to Congress, Obama will not only restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) but also increase it to $65 million. This is the UN body involved in and supportive of the Chinese one-child policy that includes forced abortion and sterilization.

A coalition of abortion advocacy groups including the Catholics for Choice, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Guttmacher Institute, International Planned Parenthood Federation (the presumed architect of the RH bill), International Women’s Health coalition, National Organization for Women and Population Action International is also asking the Obama administration to increase funding for international family programs to $1 billion arguing that “more than 200 million women in the developing world wish to delay, space or complete childbearing but do not have access to modern contraceptives” that are undeniably abortifacients.

Regrettably, some Filipino Catholics among them legislators also have this “pro-choice” stance allegedly for “humanitarian reasons”. They adamantly insist that women should have the right to choose the methods they believe would be more effective in planning their family to alleviate them from poverty. Hopefully they may be enlightened by Pope John Paul II’s answer to why he had repeatedly condemned any legalization of abortion which has even been defined as “obsessive” by certain cultural and political groups professing “humanitarian reasons” on their side — the side that has led governments to permit abortion. The Pope said:

“For man, the right to life is the fundamental right. And yet, a part of contemporary culture has wanted to deny that right, turning it into an “uncomfortable” right, one that has to be defended. But there is no other right that so closely affects the very existence of the person! The right to life means the right to be born and then continue to live until one’s natural end. “As long as I live, I have the right to live.”

The question of conceived and unborn children is a particularly delicate yet clear problem. The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of the established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with the fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.

Often the question is presented as a woman’s right to free choice regarding the life already existing inside her, that she carries in her womb: the woman should have the right to choose between giving life or taking it away from the unborn child. Anyone can see that the alternative is only apparent. It is not possible to speak of the right to choose when a clear moral evil is involved, when what is at stake is the commandment Do not kill.

Might this commandment allow of exception? The answer in and of itself is no, since even the hypothesis of legitimate defense, which never concerns an innocent but always and only an unjust aggressor must respect the principle of non culpable defense. In order to be legitimate that “defense” must be carried out in a way that causes the least damage and, if possible saves the life of the aggressor.

This is not the case with an unborn child. A child conceived in its mother’s womb is never an unjust aggressor; it is a defenseless being that is waiting to be welcomed and helped.  

It is necessary to recognize that, in this context, we are witnessing true human tragedies. Often the woman is the victim of male selfishness, in the sense that the man, who has contributed to the conception of the new life, does not want to be burdened with it and leaves the responsibility to the woman, as if it were “her fault” alone. So, precisely when the woman most needs the man’s support, he proves to be a cynical egotist, capable of exploiting her affection or weakness, yet stubbornly resistant to any sense of responsibility for his own action.

Therefore, in firmly rejecting “pro-choice” it is necessary to become courageously “pro-woman”, promoting a choice that is truly in favor of woman. It is precisely the woman, in fact, who pays the highest price, not only for her motherhood, but even more for its destruction, for the suppression of the life of the child who has been conceived. The only honest stance, in these cases is that of radical solidarity with the woman. It is not right to leave her alone. The experiences of many counseling centers show that the woman does not want to suppress the life of the child she carries within her. If she is supported in this attitude, and if at the same time she is freed from the intimidation of those around her, then she is even capable of heroism. As I have said, numerous counseling centers are witnesses to this, as are, in a special way, houses for teenage mothers. It seems therefore, that society is beginning to develop a more mature attitude in this regard, even if there are still many self styled “benefactors” who claim to “help” women by liberating them from the prospect of motherhood” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 204-207). –Jose C. Sison, Philippine Star