Pro-Poor Church Encouraged to Engage in Dialogue and Sober Debates on Pro-Poor RH Bill

Gabriela Representative Luz Ilagan today called on leaders of the Catholic Church to engage instead in healthy debates on the RH Bill. She encouraged the Catholic community to take a deeper look at the proposed measure, open their doors to dialogue instead of hurling accusations and baseless statements against its proponents.

“A genuinely pro-poor church ought to see the merits of the bill, read its provisions and realize its potential to help and uplift women and children from the poorest communities.”

Ilagan explained that the pro-poor provisions of the Reproductive Health Bill include:

· Pregnant working employees should be given paid half-day prenatal medical leaves for each month of the pregnancy period.

· Giving pro-bono reproductive health care services for indigent women by making it mandatory for all health care workers to provide at least 48 hours annually of reproductive health services free of charge to indigent patients, especially pregnant adolescents.

· Improvement and upgrading of equipment available in public health care facilities, including barangay health centers to ensure that they are able to conduct basic reproductive health care procedures such as pap smears.

“Why deprive women and their families of badly needed health services? Why deprive them of their rights to healthcare? The RH Bill does not promise to be a panacea to the people’s poverty but it is one important piece of legislation that will make it government policy to ensure the delivery of women’s reproductive health care services,” concluded Ilagan.###