Feedback to "Life worth fighting for"

I thank you for reading my feedback to your article "Senseless Maternal Deaths".  I am doubly thankful to you for writing a follow-up article "Life worth fighting for" (https://www.philstar.com/business/2012/06/25/821004/life-worth-fighting-for) which include my emailed letter.

I am saddened, though, by your confession that you are "a person not averse to accepting the use of contraceptive measures, more so if a mother’s health or her baby’s is at risk should there be the possibility of a pregnancy". Contrary to your opinion, I see contraceptive measures give-out multifaceted effects, some may appear beneficial, but its inherent outcome is anti-life. I analogically compare contraceptive measures to the conventional carpet bombs of the US Air force: it does not discriminate between combatant and civilian-non-combatant targets.

I agree with you that HB4244 includes provisions to improve hospital facilities and personnel to better deliver maternal health care. But I am very worried that these are bundled-up with contraceptive measures. I analogically liken HB4244 to a nutritious pot of soup with a thimble of human feces dropped to it. No one in his right mind will take that pot of soup! I am convinced that provision on contraceptive measures destroys the possible maternal health benefits of HB4244. 

If our political authorities are authentically sincere in lowering maternal mortality rate they should remove contraception in HB4244. Besides, contraception is just one of HB4244's objectives, as you mentioned.

Our Catholic bishops are not against provisions for improving maternal delivery care. They are against the contraceptive-measures component.

Feedback to "Contraceptive morality"

Note: This is my comment at "Contraceptive morality" of PDI.

The woman's power to conceive is NOT a tool to be owned absolutely by a woman. It is entrusted to her by her Creator; it is not hers. She will render account to her Creator on how she used it later in her life.

Feedback to "Senseless Maternal Deaths"

Dear Mr. Gamboa,

I chanced upon your article "Senseless Maternal Deaths"(http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=819584&publicationSubCategoryId=66) in Philippine Star. It appears to be pushing for the passing of HB 4244 (The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011) into law as soon as possible.

I have read HB 4244 several times. The primary solution it envisions to contribute toward lowering maternal mortality rate is by preventing pregnancies through contraception and a veiled provision for abortion in the term "emergency obstetric care services". But the State has no right to compel couples not to beget children. It is a human right of every couple to decide whether or not to form a family. The accusation alleging some couples are irresponsible in begetting children beyond their capability to support is not sufficient reason for the State to dictate to them to practice contraception.

If the State is truthfully serious in lowering maternal mortality rate, it should enact laws that target the real cause of maternal mortality: poor birthing facilities and lack of skilled staff. HB 4244 does not have provisions for improving birthing facilities. The bill does not envision to assist couples who wish to have children. It is skewed to favoring pregnancy-prevention which is one-sided and unfair.

I stumbled-upon a 2008 TIME magazine article on maternal mortality (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842278,00.html). It identified some of the causes of maternal mortality, which are as follows:
1. Low access to well-equipped clinics or hospitals;
2. Lack of properly trained and adequately-paid medical professionals;
3. Low availability of necessary medicines;
4. Unsanitary traditional practices;
5. Well-entrenched traditions and fatalistic attitudes to maternal mortality;
6. Lack of government funds for maternity health care; and
7. Lack of political will of government decision makers.

With HB 4244, the State is proposing a wrong solution to the problem; it is "barking at a wrong tree". Our political authorities should, instead, work on solving why public funds are not effectively translated to better local government hospital facilities and skilled health staff: fight graft and corruption.

Thank you for writing "Senseless Maternal Deaths".

Comment at "Trouble brewing"

Note: This is my comment at PDI's Trouble brewing.

I understand the sentiment of the author who employs a secular and atheistic theoretical framework in portraying the Catholic Church as an institution.

The faithfuls of the Catholic Church accept by faith that the Catholic Church has a spiritual and invisible dimension, analogously similar to a human being that has a spiritual soul united to a physical and material body.

Thus, it is incomplete and a huge injustice to measure the Catholic Church in purely physical, visible and material criteria.

In understanding why Catholic Church does not ordain women to the priesthood, it is necessary to look back at the historical past, up to the time of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who chose only men as his closest collaborators in fulfilling His mission. Moreover, it is a big mistake for Mr. Denis Murphy to treat the priesthood as positions of power. Contrary to his notion, priests ought to look at their role as servants, following Jesus Christ's example.

But this does not mean women have a lower dignity compared to men. It is taught in the Catholic Church that men and women have equal personal dignity. In addition, "Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out." (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2333)