DIANA S.

ROBUELTO
BSM III-A

REFLECTION PAPER ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL

The first time that I heard about the Reproductive Health Bill or the so-called RH Bill, I
totally ignored it because I was then a young student and just wanted to focus on my
studies just like my classmates. It only came to my attention because it was very viral on
television and news about it that it was brought about to debates by different
government officials and religious sectors. Nevertheless, I didn’t delve much deeper on
the said reproductive health bill until such time that I got married and had a family.

My stand on the Reproductive Health Bill is that it involves about me and every Filipinos
and even any unborn child. When I started working at the RHU, I came to know and
understand better about the program and I totally agree with the RH Bill because it's for
everybody's betterment. I think it's about time that we do something on the fast
population growth in the Philippines. This population growth is obviously one of the
causes of poverty and this program is one of the ways that the government had come
up to limit and control the continuous surge of population growth.

As we all know, unwanted and unplanned pregnancies greatly affects teenagers, young
adults, students and even married couple. Some of them resort to unsafe abortion
which may put them at risk. Others opted to continue the pregnancy and just embrace
the fact that it's already done and they can not do something about it. But never did
they know that the real problem starts upon the child's delivery. One example is a
pregnant couple with their 9th child. Their oldest is 20 years old and the youngest is 1
year old. The father is a tricycle driver and the mother stays at home to take care of the
children. From this point of view, the parents obviously are having a hard time to sustain
the needs of their children such as food, education, health, clothing and other kinds of
support. As a result, the whole family is malnourished and dont get the proper
education that they need to be able to go on in their future lives. These children,
without proper knowledge and education, might even decide to marry at young age and
repeat the same cycle that their parents did.

I am a religious man and I am a Catholic. I adhere to the teachings of the church and I
am very much aware that we live in a society where various religious groups have
differing beliefs on the morality of artificial contraception. But also, freedom to choose
religion also means freedom to believe and the freedom to act or not to act according to
what one believes. Hence, the state should not prevent the people from practicing
responsible parenthood according to their religious beliefs, nor the church compel the
government, by whatever means, to prevent people from acting according to their
beliefs.

RH Bill is helpful in controlling the population of the Philippines. With this law, all
citizens of the Philippines have access to all forms of artificial contraceptive methods of
their choice to prevent pregnancy. This gives the people time to be prepared and decide
on their own when is the best time for them to get pregnant and have a child.
Furthermore, parents can also have enough spacing of their children and mothers to be
able to recover from their previous pregnancy. As a mother, I am very thankful that I
have free access to contraceptive methods. With this, I am confident that I can give my
child all the support that he needs and the time to grow with all our attention.