Reproductive Health Act of 2012

Humans are naturally born governed with laws and that’s what we call the natural law.
And as we, humans grow to become more intellectual, we generated our own laws and rules to
govern our lives for better quality and discipline. But sometimes, there are laws or proponents
that have gained different viewpoints among us as to its necessity, value, and morality. One of
these is the Reproductive Health Bill. Reproductive Health Law today is popularly known as the
RH LAW, also called Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, a Philippine
law that aims to guarantee methods and information for universal access on birth control and
maternal care. It allows the usage of different contraception methods to prevent the
multiplying population here in our country. The Philippines is one of the countries experiencing
population explosion. It is said to be the root cause of extreme poverty, high crime rates, and
unmanageable health problems. The Reproductive Health bill aims to promote responsible
parenthood, properly conceptualized birth spacing and respect for life in consonance with the
internationally recognized human rights standard. It also guarantees universal access to
medically safe, legal, affordable, and quality reproductive health care services either on modern
or natural methods, devices, and supplies all for the promotion of gender equality and woman
empowerment. It does not only aim to mold citizens but to also prevent reproductive tract
infections such as HIV, AIDS and STD.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of RH Bill or RH Law? For me the advantage
of the RH Bill is that having control of the growing population and it will lessen the poverty and
having to know more about family planning. By using contraceptives, people have a choice as to
the number of children that they can afford to care for. Through this method, overpopulation
can be reduced. With the RH Bill, we can raise healthier, God-fearing and responsible citizens of
our country. But there is also a disadvantage of RH Bill like young ones will use it for having a
sex at their young age introducing reproductive health education and promoting the use of
contraceptives may encourage irresponsible sexual attitude, especially among the youth. It
also said its anti-life RH Bill in the first place is a violation of a religious doctrine in our country, a
Catholic-dominated nation. Contraceptives are not an assurance to prevent fertilization, for
medical studies show that some of these contraceptives can cause abortion. Lastly it is also
prone to corruption, implementation of the bill will cost billions of pesos and the threat lies
behind the process.

For me I guess I’m pro RH Bill or RH Law in a sense that it is the only way to help our
country to reduce overcome population and I believe that the irresponsible parenthood is one
of the main reasons why there is poverty. I think this bill was aimed to the poor ones because
they are the ones who cannot support their family and most of them have no education, this
means more problems. This helps us to make the lives of the Filipino future to be more
productive. The Catholic Church is against this Reproductive Health Bill. They are arguing that
this promotes the artificial way of family planning without realizing that it is the right of the
people to choose whether to do it or to practice the natural way. They keep on insisting that
the usage of condoms can invoke people to have more sex and practice pre-marital sex,
whereas the sex education takes place. Sex education is not a direct instruction on how to do
sex, but it is information on what sex are, pros and cons of engaging into it or other matters
alike. They also said that the availability of contraceptives may trigger the women to abort a
child. But this is not the RH Bill is all about. We are against abortion but we are fighting for a
choice, for a health care, for a better future. Through RH Bill, it can lessen the problems of the
government with regards to the health of the Filipinos by preventing the spreading of AIDS in
our country, it is very threatening that the number of Filipinos who are positive in AIDS is
increasing, the usual victim of this syndrome are teenagers, they’re very active in engaging with
sex maybe because of curiosity and lack of parents’ guidance. We all need guidance no matter
how young or old we are. We are not perfect individuals in this earth. I find the RH Bill helpful
considering the current problems and issues that we are now facing in our modern society. We
have abortion among teen-agers, blocked canals because of excessive plastic trashes, extreme
poverty, and the like because we refuse to be educated. We refuse to listen and be guided. We
reject empowerment. We are insensitive to the needs and feelings of humankind.