‘Responsible parenthood’

Legislators sponsoring the RH bill and their foreign-backed supporters including some members of media, are now jumping up and down urging Congress to put said bill into a vote, obviously emboldened by P-Noy’s alleged endorsement of the proposed law in his latest SONA. But did P-Noy really endorse the RH bill or even mentioned it in his SONA? Definitely not; not even once did he mention the bill or directly and explicitly urge Congress to approve it. What may have some relevance to the issue and which the sponsors and backers are using and interpreting as an outright and absolute endorsement is his statement that: “we are ending the backlog in the education sector but the potential for shortages remains as our student population continues to increase. Perhaps responsible parenthood can help address this.”

Obviously, the backers are using the phrase “responsible parenthood” to show that P-Noy is giving his all out support for the RH bill because said bill is allegedly also about responsible parenthood. But it is quite clear from the above quoted statement that P-Noy used the phrase only once and in passing as he laid out his plans for solving classroom shortages. He even sounds so tentative and unsure because he used the word “perhaps” in claiming that “responsible parenthood” can help address the growing student population. And he did not even explain the meaning of the phrase. Such statement cannot really be considered as clear and straightforward presentation of the problem and its solution, contrary to the overall assessment of the SONA.

But in all fairness and with due respect, it can also be said that when P-Noy used “responsible parenthood” in his SONA, he knows that the phrase is contained in the Constitution itself and he is thus using it to carry out the Charter’s mandate in this regard which provides that: “The State shall defend the right of the spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood” (Article XV Section 3[1]).

If P-Noy used the phrase within the contemplation of the above quoted Constitutional provision, then P-Noy is not referring and endorsing the RH bill here. And the reason is obvious. The “demands of responsible parenthood” contemplated by this particular provision necessarily includes the protection of “the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from the moment of conception” as mandated in Article II Section 12 of the Charter. All the provisions of the Constitution must be read together and must be reconciled. Hence “responsible parenthood” under our Constitution means that the spouses shall plan the size of their family by spacing the birth of their children in order to raise them properly and well without however endangering the life of the mother and the unborn from the moment of conception.

But the proposed RH bill provides for universal access to all sorts of artificial contraceptives that have already been medically proven to cause abortion or to force couples to resort to abortion because of unwanted pregnancies. These contraceptives have also been shown to cause cancer or other serious illness on the mother and the children they may subsequently beget. “Responsible parenthood” and the RH bill are therefore absolutely incompatible simply because the phrase excludes the use of artificial contraceptives which the RH bill is precisely making available to women especially the impoverished ones.

To be sure, “responsible parenthood” is not an original concept of our constitutional framers. The phrase and its real concept first appeared in the Papal encyclical Gaudium et Spes later explained more profoundly by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae. These encyclicals explain the meaning of responsible parenthood and how it is exercised. Thus:

“Responsible parenthood is an attitude toward parenthood — not separated from the practice of virtue — that encompasses God’s plan for marriage and family. It also involves the recognition of duties of the spouses toward themselves, the family and society, while, at the same time, recognizing that they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous manner the honest path to follow. It is the same as family planning.

Responsible parenthood is exercised either by the mature and generous decision to raise a large family, or by the decision, made for grave motives, and with respect for the moral law, to avoid a new birth for the time being and for an indeterminate period.

In deciding to have a large family, “each couple has to see before God how many children He wants them to have and be open to his will. They must conform their activity to the creative intention of God. In the task of transmitting life therefore they are not free to proceed completely at will.

“If the couple decides to avoid new births in the meantime they must have grave reasons for doing so, bearing in mind the purpose of marriage and that one day, they have to render an account before God of the children they did or did not have. Furthermore they should conform to the moral teaching that the licit way of spacing birth is to have marital relations at a time “when conception cannot take place” or during “the infertile periods within the female sexual cycle.” The artificial methods are illicit because “in them, the spouses act as arbiters of the divine plan and they manipulate and degrade human sexuality.”

Clearly the RH bill is not about “responsible parenthood” because it provides access to artificial contraceptives that endangers the life and health of the mother and the unborn from the moment of conception and because it impairs the right of couples to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions. P-Noy should issue a clarification that his statement on responsible parenthood in his SONA is not an endorsement of the RH bill. Otherwise his reputation as an “honest” leader will be severely damaged. –Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star)