As for coercion, it comes in many ways. It is also a form of coercion to force public money to dole out free contraceptives, when real health programs suffer from funding, as well as major economic programs being neglected. (like rice self-sufficiency program which lacks funds). It is also coercion to force secular mandatory sex education. It is also coercion to force health practitioners to go along with the promotion.

I have no problem with the awareness part, on that we can agree. Public awareness programs should be objective though. The problem is they paint chemical contraceptives as totally “safe and effective” when established medical research says they are also harmful to a woman’s body.

Also, the Church does not classify condoms as abortifacients either. And you are totally free to disagree with the Church in its teachings about contraceptives in general. The Church of course, as far as I understand is likewise free to preserve its theological tradition, at least in democratic and enlightened circles.

On rape: The rape IS unwanted. A human being that results from such a rape (a very, very rare probability by the way) is a distinct human being totally innocent of any crime whatsoever. It is not “unwanted” in the sense you want to abort (in other words, kill) that innocent, defenseless human being.

Anyway, I wonder what exactly is the church’s beef against condoms? God himself couldn’t have forbidden its usage, simply because condoms are not yet existent during His time. It is also not an abortifacent, as other conservatives claim. Pushing for planned parenthood is laudable, I must say.

Re your last point: totally untrue. Example: what can you say about those who got impregnated by rapists?

The Catholic teaching against contraceptives is a universal Magesterial teaching throughout Church tradition since day 1, even the Pope cannot change that teaching.

The Catholic Church is against infidelity (which causes much of STDs). The Church also teaches responsibility in parenting (including discerning the number and spacing of children). In responsible parenthood (by the way, that term originated from the Church), there is no such thing as an “unwanted pregnancy”.

In any way, I cannot fathom why some quarters are so against condoms. What is so wrong with wanting to have protected yourself from STDs and unwanted pregnancies?

I think you are actually the one who are muddling things up. First, the author do not refer to Filipino Catholics as “more Catholic than the Pope.” Her statement refers to the members of Ayala Alabang local council who made that ordinance requiring a doctor’s prescription before one can buy condoms. She is not talking about diversity in Church dostrines, like what you claim. Obviously, you failed to understand what this blog is all about.

And for your reference, Pope Benedict XVI as early as last year had already described the use of condoms on certain cases as acceptable. Read this:

“Pope Benedict says that condoms can be used to stop the spread of HIV”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/21/pope-benedict-condoms-hiv-infection

The pertinent provisions of Republic Act No. 5921 entitled AN ACT REGULATING THE PRACTICE OF PHARMACY AND SETTING STANDARDS OF PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES enacted into law June 21, 1969 are hereby incorporated into the Ordinance as an integral part thereof and are reproduced as follows:

“Section 37. Provisions relative to dispensing of anti-conceptional substances and devices. No drug or chemical product or device capable of provoking abortion or preventing conception as classified by the Food and Drug Administration shall be delivered or sold to any person without a proper prescription by a duly licensed physician.”
/
TWO THINGS:
ONE – there is an existing and in-effect law here – RA 5921 – that the Barangay Council seeks to enforce. Enforcing existing laws is well within its authority.
TWO – It never said it would ban condoms on its own authority under this section. It seeks to reinforce the ban on drugs or devices that are ALREADY banned by FDA.

The Catholic Church is one; what one sees, therefore, in the Holy Masses in Tegucigulpa- aside from the language, of course– is the same Holy Mass one sees in Manila.

The same is true with Church doctrines– the same all throughout.

I could not understand what the basis of the author is in claiming such, except that she’s just trying to muddle things up.

The ordinance was enacted to protect the lives of Filipinos from the moment they come into existence, which is required by the Philippine Constitution but is not currently being done, and in an effort to prevent a contraceptive society from developing.

Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences awardee George Akerlof established in his 1996 study, “An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States,” that a contraceptive society takes away the freedom of single women to say no to sexual propositions, whether they want to or not, if they hope to have any relationship with men. Other researchers have confirmed this. Many residents of Ayala Alabang, particularly those with unmarried daughters, find this to be an undesirable state of affairs. In his 1998 study, “Men Without Children,” Professor Akerlof established that a contraceptive society greatly reduces marriages, and consequently increases crime because the young men who commit most crimes find stability in marriage that they do not have outside it. He also established that a contraceptive society leads to the feminization of poverty because of resulting widespread single-motherhood — numerous births out of wedlock being the great paradoxical hallmark of a contraceptive society.
Stanford University economics professor Robert T. Michael established in his 1977 study, “Why Has the Divorce Rate Doubled Within the Decade?” that a contraceptive society greatly increases the divorce rate. Many residents of Ayala Alabang also find this to be an undesirable development. Some of them are aware that in addition to negative effects on the spouses, divorce has very well-established — by social science — and profoundly negative consequences for children.

In a contraceptive society, “As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate,” according to Dr. Malcolm Potts, the pro-abortion doctor from the U.S. who recently visited the Philippines to support the Reproductive Health Bill. However, abortion is not only illegal in the Philippines, it is unconstitutional, so this too is an unwelcome development for most Filipinos, not just residents of Ayala Alabang.

In a contraceptive society, many people never marry, many of those who do marry eventually divorce, many of those who don’t marry live-in instead, and most of the live-ins eventually split up. Consequently many children grow up without both parents in their home, and suffer the consequences of poverty, poor health, physical and sexual abuse, and propensity to crime — also very well-attested in the social science literature. Since most Filipinos still value family as one of the most important — or even the most important — thing(s) in life, this also is not a desired trend.

The greatest single result of the contraceptive society is that there are one hundred million (100,000,000) women currently missing from the world’s population, as the Economist magazine reported on March 4, 2010 — a result of the abortion mentality produced by contraception. These women should be among us, living, loving, laughing, crying, hoping — like the rest of us. But they’re not here.

One other thing about contraceptive societies, they don’t produce enough children, men or women, to sustain their economies over the long term. In the aging and eventually declining populations they produce, consumption can not keep up with production, resulting in permanent recession. Some examples come to mind. There are going to be many more.

Residents of Ayala Alabang have a lot of good reasons to regulate contraceptives.

Incidentally, the economic literature on the relationship of population growth rate vs. economic growth rate, empirically establishes that there is no direct link. To the extent that there is a link, its effects are exceeded by other factors, such as corruption.

Also, Edward C. Green, senior research scientist, Harvard School of Public Health, whose specialty is epidemiology, has found in his studies that “there is no evidence that more condoms leads to less AIDS.”
And, Dr. Norman Hearst, of the University of California at San Francisco, has stated that statistics show a pattern of increased condom sales correlating with rising HIV prevalence — the former preceding the latter.

Couples can abstain from sex, do self-help, use condom, perform it when the woman is safe, or ask her partner to do “coitus interruptus”. The lessons of the birds and the bees do not require that parents should have PhD’s. When they could not do these things, society, the church specifically, is being blamed for the ballooning population and the resulting infants and maternal deaths as if the church or the collective society have something to do with the manner most people engage in promiscuous behaviour and irresponsible conduct.

In RP, the law against abortion suddenly becomes the culprit and society’s moral judgment against pregnant women without partners becomes a crime. We have our moral compass totally upside down, the very reason why we remain a third world country.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/212021/the-consolidated-rh-bill-in-the-15th-congress

- Mark Pere Madrona

The bill also do not coerce couples to prefer condoms and artificial birth-control means over the natural ones. It only requires the government to at least educate the public about their options on this regard. What is wrong with that?

Btw, even internationally-acclaimed theater performer Lea Salonga can’t help but slam this ordinance:

http://www.leasalonga.com/index.php/leas-official-blog/280-you-dont-have-any-business-having-sex-part-1.html