Now Filipino women have access to reproductive health services from the government. The Supreme Court has finally declared the Reproductive Health Law “not unconstitutional.”
Although the high court struck down some provisions of the law, it has finally cleared the law for implementation. Opponents have been given a couple of weeks to move for a reconsideration but it’s likely that the law’s implementation will now move forward.
The Supreme Court’s ruling allows the government to start providing the women’s health services listed in the law.
Incidentally, the double-negative “not unconstitutional” ruling of the Court is so phrased because, according to its spokesman, the petition lodged by RH opponents was that the law was unconstitutional and therefore the verdict is that it’s “not unconstitutional.”
Some of the mandates of the law have been declared unconstitutional. These pertain to providing minors access to contraceptives without parental consent, penalizing health professionals and providers for refusing to disseminate information about reproductive health programs and requiring parental consent from a minor in non-emergency situations, and penalizing government employees who refuse to support RH programs.
The RH debate has gone on for several years and has divided the nation between the pros and antis. It’s been a robust and often acrimonious exchange.
Some distortions about the measure got in the way, unwittingly or otherwise. The distortions — like insinuating or even declaring that the law will make abortions legal — have animated anti-abortion advocates and have caused the debate to take a prolonged and circuitous route through the legislative mill. Some of the distortions were intentional, some the products of ignorance or a closed mind.
The long debate has polarized the country. Neither side would budge and both sides have been adamant about their respective stands.
Now it’s finally over, save the time given for motions for reconsideration. It may be a win-win solution, some even calling it a Solomonic decision.
Manila Observer thinks the pro-RH forces won the day. The law’s provisions that were declared unconstitutional by the Court don’t emasculate the law or render it ineffectual.
Actually, the Court was quite sensible when it declared some provisions unconstitutional because they relate to forcing public health workers to provide RH services at all costs. It’s quite commonsensical and sensible to require minors and women, respectively, to get their parents’ and spouses’ consent before seeking RH-related services.
Of the 3.4 million annual pregnancies among Filipino women, half are unintended and one-third are aborted, according to the United Nations Population Fund. Daily, 11 women in the Philippines die of pregnancy-related causes. Fifty-two Filipino mothers die in every 100,000 live births.
The RH law aims at making a dent on the negative effects on women of childbearing age in the country. Full funding and implementation of the law will of course be crucial. While the current administration may be sanguine about the law’s implementation, it’s possible that future governments may be lukewarm about it depending on their philosophical orientation. And, attempts may be launched in the future to repeal the law.
The long debate may be over for now. The RH proponents are jubilant despite the provisions that were struck down by the Supreme Court. The antis say that the ruling has watered down the law, but that seems to be just face-saving on their part.
The head of the Catholic Bishops Conference pf the Philippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, provided the right tone: “We cannot see eye-to-eye with our pro-RH brethren on this issue but we can work hand-in-hand for the good of the country. Let us move on.”
It’s a positive note and hopefully it will quell the strident voices on his side of the debate and also quiet down the rhetoric on both sides.
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