Yahoo – AFP, 8 April 2014
Manila (AFP) - The Philippines' highest court approved Tuesday a controversial birth control law that supporters said would transform the lives of millions of poor Filipinos, in a stunning defeat for the powerful Catholic Church.
File photo
taken in August 2012 shows people rallying for the passage of
a bill providing
greater access to birth control in Quezon City, Manila (AFP
Photo/Jay Directo)
|
Manila (AFP) - The Philippines' highest court approved Tuesday a controversial birth control law that supporters said would transform the lives of millions of poor Filipinos, in a stunning defeat for the powerful Catholic Church.
"The
RH law is not unconstitutional," Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te told
reporters, announcing a ruling that struck down more than a dozen petitions
against the reproductive health law by church groups.
The law
requires government health centres to hand out free condoms and birth control
pills, as well as mandating that sex education be taught in schools.
File photo
taken in August 2012
shows people rallying for the
passage of a bill providing
greater
access to birth control in Quezon
City, Manila (AFP Photo/Jay
Directo)
|
The
Catholic Church had until Tuesday led a successful campaign for more than 15
years against any form of family planning laws in the Philippines.
Philippine
President Benigno Aquino defied church pressure and signed the law into effect
in December 2012, but the Supreme Court quickly suspended it after church
groups filed petitions arguing it was unconstitutional.
"This
monumental decision upholds the separation of church and state and affirms the
supremacy of government in secular concerns like health and socio-economic
development," legislator Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the law,
said immediately after the verdict.
"A
grateful nation salutes the majority of justices for their favourable ruling
promoting reproductive health and giving impetus to sustainable human
development."
The
Catholic Church, which counts over 80 percent of the country's 100 million
population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as
"evil", and at one point in its opposition campaign threatened Aquino
with excommunication.
'Civil
disobedience'
One of its
hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former senator Francisco
Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open
revolt.
"This
means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most
extreme," Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Times newspaper on
Tuesday.
"Some
of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be,
in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger
than ourselves."
Church
leaders have helped lead two revolutions that toppled unpopular presidents in
recent Philippine history, and they continue to insist they have a right to
influence the parliamentary and legal branches of government.
Philippine
President Benigno Aquino at Parliament House in Kuala
Lumpur on February 28,
2014 (AFP Photo/Modh Rasfan)
|
Another
example of its enduring influence is that the Philippines is the only country
where divorce remains illegal.
Nevertheless,
many people across the sprawling archipelago have embraced less conservative
views in recent decades.
A recent
survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said
about 84 percent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free
family planning options such as contraceptives.
It said 72
percent were "in favour" of the law.
Women's
rights groups and other supporters of the law say it will be a powerful tool in
fighting poverty and cutting the birth rate of 3.54, one of the highest in the
world.
More than a
quarter of the population live on the equivalent of 62 cents a day, according
to the government, and experts say there is an urgent need to provide free
reproductive medical services that the poor can not otherwise afford.
More than a
third of the capital's 14 million population live in sprawling slums, according
to a 2010 World Health Organization report, and many of them do not have access
to proper sanitation, let alone health centres.
According
to the British medical charity Merlin, which has backed the passage of the law,
14-15 mothers die daily in the Philippines in complications related to child
birth.
Related Articles:
"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)
“… 3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…
Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?
The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].
Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”
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