After six petitions challenging its legality, Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 has found an ally in a former lawmaker and a group of mothers who took to the Supreme Court on Monday to support the controversial law.
In a motion to intervene, former Akbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel and a group of mothers insised that claims by critics of the law that contraceptives have an "abortifacient nature... have no medical basis."
Hontiveros claimed there is already a "vast array of medical evidence" to prove the efficiency of legal and government-approved contraceptives.
She said bringing up these concerns on contraceptives, which she claimed have repeatedly been brought up and answered in Congress in the last 14 years, would only prolong the delay on the law's implementation.
"The RH law is 14 years too late, but its enactment is giving us a chance to stop maternal deaths and put an end to an epidemic of ignorance that disempowers women and men alike. We must not allow the ill-founded, desperate and unreasonable attempts of a few groups to squander that chance," Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros said RH Law critics are seeking help from the "wrong venue," saying that instead of bringing the matter before the Supreme Court, they should be questioning the "efficacy of reproductive health products" before the Food and Drug Authority.
Hontiveros claimed she is not afraid of the so-called Catholic vote, saying she thinks a "huge majority of Filipino Catholics" support the law. The Catholic Church is one of the staunchest critics of the RH law.
Despite a failed bid in the Senate in the 2010 elections, Hontiveros will once again try to secure a seat in the upper chamber as she plans to run in the 2013 polls under the ticket of President Benigno Aquino III, who enacted the RH law in December last year.
Last week, the high tribunal once again deferred acting on a request to stop the controversial law, which took effect two weeks ago. Instead, the government required the government, through the Office of Solicitor General to comment on the various petitions against the law.
To date, there are a total of six petitions questioning the constitutionality of the Reproductive Health law, seperately filed by James Imbong, son of Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines legal counsel Jo Aurea Imbong, and his wife Lovely-Ann; Serve Life Cagayan de Oro City; Task Force for Family and Life Visayas Inc and Valeriano Avila; the Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines Inc.; Expedito Bugarin; and Eduardo Olaguer and the Catholic Xyberspace Apostolate of the Philippines.
In their petition for certiorari and prohibition with a prayer for a writ of injunction, the Imbong couple said the government should cease from implementing the law for being "unconstitutional." They filed the petition "on behalf of our minor children."
The RH law seeks to provide improved public access to natural and artificial family planning options, better maternal care, and youth education.
But the Imbongs said the law "mocks the nation's Filipino culture — noble and lofty in its values and holdings on life, motherhood and family life — now the fragile lifeblood of a treasures culture that today stands solitary but proud in contrast to other nations."
Aquino signed the Reproductive Health Act of 2012 last December 21. It took effect last week, or 15 days after its publication in two newspapers of general circulation.
Although already in effect, the government said the implementing rules and regulations for the law are still being drafted and are expected to be released in April.
Malacañang, through deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte, said the RH bill's passage into law “closes a highly divisive chapter of our history,” although the bill's critics vowed to bring the battle to the courts.
The Catholic Church was among the staunchest critics of the controversial law, saying promoting the use of articial contraceptives was against God's teachings. —KG, GMA News
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