Clinton visit seen as indirect push for RH

MANILA, Nov. 13, 2011US Secretary of State Hillary Clintons visit to Manila on November 15 is being regarded by life and family advocates as an indirect push for the reproductive health (RH) agenda.

Clinton is coming to the country to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and join a ceremony launching the Partnership for Growth with the Philippines, sources said.

Though the US officials one-day visit has its public agenda, pundits are speculating that it may be used to remind local RH proponents about the hackneyed phrase among government-subsidized birth control believers the so-called unmet need for reproductive health care.

Congress resumes sessions on the reproductive health bill on the same week of Clintons visit.

While House Speaker Feliciano Sonny Belmonte has indicated plans to prioritize House Bill 4244 when sessions resume and put it to a vote by December, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has stated that Senate Bill 2865 will be taken up again only next year due to other measures that warrant more immediate attention.

The RH bills have been meeting increased opposition from faith-based organizations, family and life advocates, as well as child development specialists, with rallies and other public demonstrations of protest being carried out around the country.

Clinton, a known advocate of universal access to abortion on demand, has categorically stated that reproductive health care includes access to abortion.

Filipino pro-lifers overseas are looking at next weeks visit basically in the context of the RH agenda.

Advancing access to abortion

What is there to say? Hillarys known for her liberal views, especially her famous words that reproductive health and reproductive rights include the right to abortion. Im sure if she spends any time there at all, this will be one of the top items on her agenda. Thats a given, said Stef Patag from the United States.

Hillary Clinton has promised that s! he will push for abortion legalization in developing countries within the next five years. Shes there to promote the RH bill because she knows that once the definition of reproductive health is made into law in the Philippines, then abortion laws will follow soon after, remarked Rowena Mendoza De Guzman, also from the US.

She has stated again and again that reproductive health must always include access to safe, legal, and rare abortion, De Guzman continued. I hope the anti-RH people in the Philippines will show her that we Filipinos do not want this for our country, that we Filipinos are baby-loving and family-oriented people. I hope there will be a very big rally to show Hillary Clinton we dont need her telling us Filipinos how to live our lives. The Philippines is a sovereign country and liberal laws in the U.S. have no place in our culture! she declared.

I havent been following Hillary Clinton but Ive seen her affirmation on video that RH includes access to abortion, and that to me underlines the population control agenda. I can only deduce albeit not conclusively that the current US government is using this RH Agenda to control the future for the benefit of the American society. It is quite evident that the West the US included is becoming more and more dependent on the East for manufacturing and food production, and they need to be in control of these resources that are getting more scarce viable land, observed Elmer Baguioro from Singapore.

We all know how these pills and a contraceptive/liberal culture is actually damaging the bonds that tie us Filipinos with our families. The sanctity of the Filipino family and our family orientation is being attacked in this RH issue, and we need to fight this, lest we be left with a broken culture like that of the West shallow at best. Nice facades and social constructs they have, but deep inside, in the hearts of their people, they are very selfish societies. Im not generalizing each and every person in these societies, but it seems the bad guy! s are th e ones running the show, Baguioro lamented.

As a Filipino, Id rather fight the good fight now and spare my descendants from having to end up with such a society, he furthered. (CBCP for Life)