Of surveys and laws

It’s not surprising surveys that purport that many Filipinos find contraceptives acceptable (or that imply that contraceptives should be used for population control) are being used to promote the RH bill. Two problems quickly come to mind when it comes to the use of such surveys to determine state policy: reference framework issues and governance issues.

The reference framework issue simply means that people generally respond to questions based more on how the questions had been phrased and not necessarily out of a strongly held opinion regarding state policy. Change the phrasing, and the result could be a complete 180-degree turn in the majority answer, simply because of a change in the reference framework.

This brings me to my first point — a lot of Filipinos think that because of the correlation between high fertility rates and poverty, it must be the former that drives the latter and this is likely the overarching point of reference of the survey respondents. Such thinking is palpable even in casual chats, where people say things like “the poor can’t afford to have lots of children; they ought not to propagate as they become even poorer….” When taken to its logical conclusion, this chillingly implies that those who can’t afford to have children should not have any.

However, correlation is not causality. I say with others that the more valid conclusion for policy consideration goes the other way around — that because people are poor, they tend to have higher fertility rates, and the solution, therefore, is to make people more affluent. Here, President Aquino is on the right track, targeting corruption to free up financing for direct anti-poverty programs such as the Conditional Cash Transfers. Otherwise, targeting fertility rates as a matter of state policy ultimately means forcing the poor to have fewer children than they want, which is unfair and immoral, as I quoted even the Economist as saying.

This is an important point that the surveys fail to capture. Supporters of the bill say, rather disingenuously, that there is no coercion since the bill forces nobody to use contraceptives. However, what they fail to mention is that government health workers and doctors will be coerced against their conscience and legitimate objections (moral, scientific, or religious) to promote the goals of the bill. By itself, this will be an immoral state intervention. Yet with the use of such coercive state powers, the government will be able to force people who have high fertility rates to accede to population control by the logic of forced indoctrination and bureaucratic fiat, yet another immoral state act upon another. Do remember that the RH bill has a “prior restraint” provision that can be used to muzzle and silence anything opposed to it, most telling of a deliberate intention to force population control and suppress all dissent.

I submit, therefore, that the reference framework used in the surveys to support the RH bill is flawed since the participants are likely working only within their own micro-thinking, responding more to the way the question had been phrased rather than thinking through larger considerations. This brings me to my second point on the issue of governance: should what surveys say be used as justification to promote a legislative bill?

Here’s a simple thought experiment. Let’s survey Filipinos and ask them: shouldn’t we citizens pay a maximum tax of P500 or even lower? Framed that way, the overwhelming response will likely be a majority that says “No more than P500 in taxes; it’s good for us who are affected.” Can that be a basis for a new tax law? Clearly, such populism is untenable despite all the surveys for such a tax law.

And so it is also with the RH bill. We don’t need this bill! Those who think that the fertility of the poor is the problem are free to promote their goals on their own expense without infringing on the rights of anybody. We don’t need an RH bill that will coerce us into making fertility the problem like these people do, as the fight is against poverty, not against fertility or the poor. Surveys notwithstanding, I must say no to the RH bill.

Marc Bautista, CFA, is head of research at Metrobank and teaches Finance and Statistics courses in the MBA and MS Computational Finance programs of the De La Salle University College of Business. He can be reached via marcbautista.webnode.com.

The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of De La Salle University, its faculty, and its administrators. –The View From Taft — By Ildemarc C. Bautista, Businessworld