Reaction Paper

On

Society and Culture with

Family Planning
Reaction

Philippines is a huge country. Its population is increasing at a scary rate every year. No
doubt that Philippines is included to what we so called third world countries. The increasing
population of people below poverty line is a serious problem. With this problem our
government seeks possible solutions for this problem and as we can see, Reproductive Health
Bill is one of the solutions that our government has developed. It is not only a law that controls
population but its primary purpose is to promote family planning that benefits the health and
well-being of women and families throughout the country.

The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, informally known as
the Reproductive Health Law, is a law in the Philippines which guarantees universal access to
methods on contraception, fertility control and maternal care. The bill mandates the
government to promote, without bias, all effective and modern methods of family planning that
are medically safe and legal. Although abortion is recognized as illegal and punishable by law,
the bill states that the government shall ensure that all women needing care for post-abortion
complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, non-judgemental and
compassionate manner.

This law has been very controversial since when it is on the process of approval. It
gained an overwhelming opposition from the country, especially from the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines. This law is said to be against the “Right to Life” which made its
difficult process of approval across the high court. This issue has stayed on the media for a long
time creating different comments and perceptions from different kinds of citizens across the
country. It is clear that there is a huge misunderstanding about this law which caused its
pending implementation.

From what I have read about the Reproductive Health Act of 2012, I could see that its
intentions are clearly for the betterment of the society. Only, it is not clear for everybody and
the government lacked in giving away information about this law that it gained many
oppositional comments from most of the people. For me, this issue will not be settled as long as
the higher officials of the state are on debate about this law. It is necessary to settle things first
in the higher part of the government officials.

The bill requires age-appropriate reproductive health and sex education from grade five
to fourth year high school. This requirement is not really suitable for all grade five students. As
far as I know, the development of every individual is not always the same. This issue, I guess,
must be only implemented to grade six and above. Grade five students are still innocent from
this kind of issues though it is also important that they are given proper guidance about these
matters.

Reproductive Health bill can be beneficial to everybody, it only needed to be explained

clearly to citizens that we may understand what this law has been made for. The purpose of this
law is interesting. If it is closely analyzed, it could be a possible solution for the arising problem
of our society. It is necessary that the parents should know about this bill especially those
parents who lacked knowledge about family planning.

Based on what I have read about the law, it has mandated some agencies to guarantee
the health of employees which is a good thing. It is also mentioned that the national
government and local governments will ensure the availability of reproductive health care
services including family planning and prenatal care. For me, these kinds of services will be
helpful to many families.

Whatever the Reproductive Health Act of 2012 comprises, as long as it is made to solve
the society’s problem then why not give it a way to be implemented. We all wanted to have a
better society and as long as there is no other law is broken then we should at least give way to
all possible solutions. If only the law is truly analyzed and explained to all, there is will be no
misunderstandings about this issue.