HUGE Vatican FAIL

As long as I've been blogging on reproductive rights and justice (about seven years), there's been wrangling in Philippines over basic contraception and family planning.

And now it's over.

The Supreme Court in the Philippines has approved a birth control law, in a defeat for the Catholic Church.

The law requires government health centres to distribute free condoms and contraceptive pills.

The court had deferred implementation after the law's passage in December 2012 after church groups questioned its constitutionality.

Supporters of the law cheered as the court found that most of the provisions were constitutional.

The government of President Benigno Aquino defied years of church pressure by passing the bill.

It says the law will help the poor, who often cannot afford birth control, and combat the country's high rates of maternal mortality.

The provisions will make virtually all forms of contraception freely available at public health clinics.

Sex education will also be compulsory in schools and public health workers will be required to receive family planning training.

There will also be medical care for women who have had illegal abortions.

Abortion of course will still be illegal.

Here's the view from Manila.

The Catholic Church, which counts over 80 percent of the country’s 100 million population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as “evil”, and at one point in its opposition campaign threatened Aquino with excommunication.

One of its hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former senator Francisco Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open revolt.

“This means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most extreme,” Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Standard on Tuesday.

“Some of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be, in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger than ourselves.”

Big talk.

All bullshit.

Nevertheless, many Catholics have embraced less conservative views in recent decades.

A recent survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said about 84 percent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free family planning options such as contraceptives.

It said 72 percent were “in favor” of the law.

Another Vatican Taliban FAIL.

Another Vatican Taliban FAIL

Finally. After more than fourteen fucking years, the Philippines is on the road to the 20th century in reproductive health care.

Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines for people who can afford it, particularly those living in cities. But condoms, birth control pills and other methods can be difficult to find in rural areas, and their cost puts them out of reach for the very poor.
. . .
The measure passed on Monday would stock government health centers, including those in remote rural areas, with free or subsidized birth control options for the poor. It would require sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. The Philippines has one of the highest birthrates in Asia, but backers of the legislation, including the Aquino administration, have said repeatedly that its purpose is not to limit to population growth. Rather, they say, the bill is meant to offer poor families the same reproductive health options that wealthier people in the country enjoy.

But the Catlick church is still lying about the bill and vowing to fight on.

In the name of economic development and safe sex, the new law would require couples to have no more than two children. It would also commit the state to promoting contraceptives, abortion pills and voluntary sterilisation. In his message to Filipino Catholics, Card Tagle described as 'tragic' this morning's vote. Still, calling for unity, he said the Church would not concede defeat in its fight against the bill.

Previous DJ! blogposts about the struggle for sanity in the Philippines here and here.

With recent events in Uruguay, Northern Ireland, and Ireland, the Vatican Taliban is getting its ass kicked all over the world.

GOOD.

Vatican Taliban FAIL

I'd say that a nominally Catholic country that legalizes abortion in the face of the shitstorm hurled by the Vatican Taliban is on its way to happier days.

Good news! Uruguay just joined the club.

Latin America is home to about half of the world's Roman Catholics and the Church is opposed to abortion under any circumstances. But Uruguay, a country of 3.2 million people, has a strong secular tradition.

Perhaps surprisingly, civil unions for LGBT folk are legal too.

The new regime is not perfect, of course.

Under the bill Congress passed, a woman can end her pregnancy during the first 12 weeks of gestation, but she must meet with a team of health professionals, who, by law, should discourage the abortion. The woman must then reflect on the decision for five days.

"This process is complicated and legally unjustified," the nonprofit Coordinating Group for Legal Abortion said in a statement. "This means there's no recognition of a woman's right to decide freely about her life and her maternity."

Here we learn something of the politics behind the move.

The developments however come under the government of a president who is a doctor by training, Jose Mujica, and a deputy health minister, Leonel Briozzo, who is an obstetrician.
. . .
Uruguay is now only the second South American country to legalize abortion, after English-speaking Guyana in 1995. Cuba, a Latin American nation in the Caribbean, did so in 1965 and procedures are also legal in Mexico City.

"The explanation is that Latin America is the last outpost of the Roman Catholic Church," Briozzo said.

There's a cool re-organizable chart showing Catholicism by country here.

By percentage of population, the top four Catholic countries are East Timor, Malta, Honduras, and Venezuela.

The raw numbers create a different list. Brazil, where 65% are Catholic, has 123.3 million adherents. Mexico is 83% Catholic with 95.5 million. Philippines is next at 81% and 75.5 million. Then the US at 24% and 74 million.

This news from Uruguay adds to the good news from Northern Ireland last week.

The cracks are appearing. Slowly but slowly.

For sheer religious misogyny -- outside the Islamic world, that is -- Philippines takes the communion cracker.

Abortion is illegal, of course, but the Church is adamant that Filipinos remain pig-ignorant on matters sexual.

Sensible people there have been trying for 14 fucking years to pass the Sexual and Reproductive Health Bill

The bill was first introduced some 14 years ago, but has been languishing in legal limbo since. It would extend sexual health education in school, make contraceptives more widely available and improve pre and post-natal care. The bill would not legalize abortion.

.
The local branch of Christian Sharia is having none of it. They've fraudulently labelled it an 'abortion bill' and insist that its passage will lead to promiscuity, infidelity, and MORE abortions.

And now election season is about to begin there and the bill will likely get sidelined again.

Ah well. Two steps forward and still playing Statues in Philippines.

Two Population Problems. . .

. . . same solution. Heed the patriarchal church and control the women.

In Russia.

MOSCOW -- Russia's Orthodox Church teamed with Conservative parliamentarians Monday to push legislation that would radically restrict abortions in a nation struggling to cope with one of the world's lowest birthrates.

The legislation would ban free abortions at government-run clinics and prohibit the sale of the morning-after pill without a prescription, said Yelena Mizulina, who heads a parliamentary committee on families, women and children.

She added that abortion for a married woman would also require the permission of her spouse, while teenage girls would need their parents' consent. If the legislation is passed, a week's waiting period would also be introduced so women could consider their decision to terminate their pregnancy, Mizulina said.

In the Philippines.

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate is expected to start plenary debates on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill next week.

Senate committee on health and demography chair Pia Cayetano said that she is now fine-tuning the committee report and would have it ready for debates by next week.

A separate bill on the protection of the unborn child filed by a number of senators, including those who are against the RH bill, is seen by some quarters as counterweight to the controversial measure.

The committee on youth, women and family relations, also chaired by Cayetano, conducted a public hearing on the protection of the unborn child bill yesterday.

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, a staunch critic of the RH bill and one of the authors of the protection of the unborn child bill, argued that the RH bill should remove the provisions on the promotion and distribution of contraceptives by the government.

“It was revealed that a significant number of these contraceptives are abortifacients,” Sotto said after yesterday’s hearing.

He noted that even the so-called morning after pill, considered by many as abortifacient, may be purchased over-the-counter in spite of the claims of authorities to the contrary. Sotto reiterated that abortion is unconstitutional.

The Philippines has a serious population and poverty problem.

With an estimated population of about 94 million people, the Philippines is the world's 12th most populous country. An additional 11 million Filipinos live overseas.

The government has been wrangling over a reproductive health policy for nine years. But the Catlick Church has been stomping its tiny feet and nixing all attempts at rationality. It is opposed to all contraception, despite the people's overwhelming support for it.

But, hey, that's what patriarchal religion does.

Hope in the Philippines

The Philippines has a population problem.

With an estimated population of about 92 million people, the Philippines is the world's 12th most populous country. It is estimated that there are an additional 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide.

It is also 80-85% Roman Catholic.

Legislators there have been trying to formulate a family planning policy for eight years, but the Catlick Church keeps stamping its tiny feet and thwarting all efforts.

The Philippines’ population growth rate of 1.90 percent from 2005 to 2010 is still among the highest in East Asia, although this has gone down from 2.3 percent in the nineties. In a country that has no clear policy on family planning and population, more than 4,000 babies are added to its population every day.

In poorer areas, women have as many as six to seven children due to the lack of access and information to modern methods of family planning in the last decade. Depending on which government was in power, local clinics were giving out information about contraception that included condoms or were instructed to avoid doing so.

Incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who came to power with the backing of the Church, has consistently emphasised natural family planning – including abstinence –and "responsible parenthood" over modern methods.

(She herself has just two children.)

In May they're having a presidential election. There are nine candidates, only three of whom 'seem' to be in favour of a reproductive health policy, according to that article, 'based on their track records and public pronouncements'. (The article is silent on whether the others are opposed or just too intimidated to say.)

In late 2009, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) warned the electorate not to vote for candidates who favour the reproductive health bill. "It would not be morally permissible to vote for candidates who support anti-family policies, including reproductive health," said the CBCP's Catechism on Family and Life for the 2010 Elections.

So, that seems to be it. The Catlick Church will continue to oppose rational measures to control population growth and the Philippines will continue to export its people overseas to work and send dough home.

Oh. Wait. Looky here.

Seven in 10 Filipinos would defy the powerful Roman Catholic church and elect a president who supported the use of condoms and pills for birth control, according to survey released Friday.

Heavily Catlick countries around the world -- Spain, Portugal, Mexico, to mention a few -- are crawling out from centuries of the church's vicious misogyny, homophobia, and general opposition to sex and freedom. We hope the politicians of the Philippines are listening to their people.

'Freddy would have been so proud'

That's what my sweetie said when I called him into the room to watch this Queen medley. My sweetie adores Freddy Mercury. (The vid has a bit of slow start, but wait for it.)



From the Huffington Post, an explanation:

So why are prisoners in the Philippines such excellent dancers? Because dancing is part of their rehabilitation. In July 2007, Filipino inmates performing "Thriller" became a viral sensation garnering over 10,000,000 hits on YouTube. The performance included 1,500 prisoners, who practiced up to four hours a day.

The man who uploaded the video below, Byron Garcia, is a security consultant who was hired to reform the Cebu prison after a series of riots in 2004. Amongst other initiatives he started an exercise regime that turned into dance classes. According to the "New York Times" the "inmates' health has improved and recidivism rates are down dramatically."