MY high school classmates and I found a very good reason to support the Reproductive Health Care bill yesterday. Our argument doesn’t need to be articulated in words; we only have to bring those who oppose the passage of the bill to a charity center in Pasil, Cebu City.
At the Missionaries of Charity, we saw how unplanned pregnancy in a poverty-stricken household can bring to a child—poor nourishment and health disease. Those of us who have children knew what to tell them when we got back, and those of us who have none knew what to tell our mothers.
I would in fact come to a different realization: that a legislated reproductive health and population development program (as the HB 5043 proposes) will only repeat the "bitter harvest of broken homes, shattered lives and a demographic winter that has replaced the old myth of an exploding population with the grim reality of irreversible depopulation."
The babies are brought to the center to be nursed back to health, she says. But this is the way we treat the sick and elderly, to nurse them back to health, right?. Why should unhealthy babies require less? Most of those who get sick do not want to become sick. They do not plan their illnesses, but they got sick nevertheless. And when they do, we bring them to hospital to bring them back to health. I am sure even if the sisters have their hands full, they are happy doing what they do.
How many children there now were born because of the failure of artificial contraception? A one-night stand that turned "awry"? How many kids are there because neighbors (and barangay health workers) have pressured the parents that they can no longer care for the additional children? How many children were placed there because of changes in family circumstances, and not necessarily only because of lack of means?
Is it the sight of the malnourished kids that breaks our hearts (and think of the RH bill)? But, how many children from rich families sick in hospital now appear similarly to those kids in the sisters' care center, and yet we never think that we could be better off without them, nor think of the RH bill?
Makes me think: If what I write disgusts people, will the world be better off if my Mom and Dad did not have me, or if they had me, and still what I write disgusts people, would the world be better off if my government shut me up?
No need to answer.
N.B.: I don't like Metallica rock either. But I probably won't think of the RH bill if I hear this noise, err ... music. 80's music rock!
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Barbara Lilley writes why we should have children (from Mercator via IChooseLife):.
- Children keep you honest
- Children don't care if you're the perfect height or weight, just as long as you love them
- Children keep you young
- A hug from a child can warm your heart
- Children show you your own negative qualities that need to be changed
- A child's laugh makes you smile too (and sometimes even join in)
- Children remind you how much fun colouring can be
- One day, your child will be toilet-trained, your dog will forever need you to pick up after it
- Children don't leave wet furballs lying around for you to step in
- Breastfeeding brings you closer to your baby-it is not slavery. Scratch that-feeding your baby brings you closer to your baby-whether breast or bottle-fed
- Children only kill desire in a marriage if you let them – get creative
- Riding the merry-go-round with your children reminds you how to be a kid again
- Little faces that light up when you walk through the door-whether you've been gone for five hours or five minutes
- Snuggling in bed reading together
- Crayon drawings on the refrigerator door
- Swelling with pride at your child's accomplishments-whether it's learning to ride a bike or graduating from high school
- Having someone to pass on family traditions to – or creating new ones
- Mother's Day cards that say, “You're the best Mom in the whole world!”
- Father's Day cards that read, “To the world's greatest Dad!”
- Hugs and kisses, just because
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