Lagman: CBCP misinforming people on US ‘defunding’
WENDELL VIGILIA
22 February 2011
The leading proponent of the RH bill at the House said the Church could be intentionally misleading the public by claiming that the United States Congress has withdrawn funding for contraceptives under the 2011 Federal Spending Bill.
House minority leader Edcel Lagman said what the US House of Representatives "defunded" was limited to financial assistance to private entities performing abortions, and not contraceptives, family planning and legal abortions in hospitals.
Lagman said Fr. Melvin Castro, head of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, "is utterly misinformed about the US ‘defunding’ measure or he is conveniently misleading the public."
He said Subsection A of Section 1009 of House Resolution 217 which was passed by the US House over the weekend merely states that the government "shall not provide any assistance under this title to an entity unless the entity certifies that, during the period of such assistance, the entity will not perform, and will not provide any funds to any other entity that performs, an abortion."
He said Subsection B of the provision said the prohibition "does not apply with respect to an abortion where the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape, or an act of incest against a minor" or when the woman is "is in danger of death unless an abortion is performed."
"It is unmistakable that only non-hospital entities will not be granted federal funding for abortions. Clinics and hospitals all over the United States will still receive much needed appropriations not only for family planning and the purchase of contraceptives but also for abortions which remain legal in the United States," Lagman said.
He said there is completely no mention of any cut, let alone the prohibition, of funding for contraceptives and family planning in the US HR 217.
Lagman said Castro should be reminded that House Bill 4244, the consolidated RH bill, "does not in any way endorse abortion as a family planning method nor does it propose to change the country’s current laws prohibiting abortion."
"What it aims to achieve is the promotion of the right to reproductive health and reproductive self-determination by making available to couples who want to plan their families all forms of family planning options as long as they are legal, medically safe and effective," he said.
Lagman said the RH bill "will also definitely help lower the incidence of abortion because contraceptive use and abortion have an inverse correlation – regular and correct use of contraceptives reduces abortion rates since unplanned and unwanted pregnancies are avoided."
He noted that research from the Guttmacher Institute even states that contraceptive use reduces abortion rates by as much as 85 percent.
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