RH authors want population control provisions deleted

REPRESENTATIVES of a women’s party-list group in Congress, who also authored the consolidated reproductive health (RH) bill, want several provisions in the controversial measure scrapped.

Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan and Rep. Emmi De Jesus of Gabriela said the remaining provisions in the bill that promote population control, especially section 12 that unabashedly states that family planning and responsible parenthood be integrated in anti-poverty programs, should be removed during the period of amendments.

“These provisions must be deleted in the RH bill. Otherwise, the long saga of blaming the population, and specifically women’s wombs, for the rising poverty in the country continues,” they said.

“This wrong notion is made to persist while government and big business interests escape responsibility for the poverty they have caused this country for decades, and the ailing Philippine health system that the government has turned its back on,” the women lawmakers stressed.