Sleeping with conservatives

ONE of the twists of last Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) is that President Rodrigo Duterte is a liberal. Now, before any of you who adore or despise him have fits, do take note that: (1) he’s a lower-case “l” liberal; and (2) this observation applies only to his stance on reproductive health.

In the nearly two decades that it took Congress to pass the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10354), one constant was what the Supreme Court (SC) described as “the clash between the seemingly antithetical ideologies of the religious conservatives and progressive liberals.”

An appeal the President made during his SONA showed he sympathized with the latter camp. He said that the Court, through a restraining order it issued in 2015, has kept the health department from distributing some P350 million worth of contraceptive implants. These include Implanon and Implanon NXT.

Recall that in April 2014, the SC ruled that except for eight provisions in the law and its implementing rules, RA 10354 did not violate the Constitution. Fourteen months later, however, the Court ordered government to stop buying, promoting or distributing those two contraceptive implants.

It also asked the Department of Health and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not to grant all pending applications for reproductive health supplies. What brought this about? Some individuals and groups, including the Alliance for the Family Foundation, had asked why the FDA in September 2014 invited suppliers of 50 contraceptives to apply for re-certification. Two months later, the FDA certified two products, Implanon and Implanon NXT.

Alliance and company’s view was that Government violated their right to due process because they were never consulted by the FDA, even after they had opposed the applications to certify a total of 77 contraceptives.

They believe these contraceptives would cause abortions or prevent fertilized eggs from being implanted in wombs. Whether or not that was true would be FDA’s call, but the Court ruled in August 2016 that the agency should have given those who oppose those 77 contraceptives “a genuine opportunity to be heard in their stance.”

What are Implanon and Implanon NXT that these should provoke such opposition? The paper “Implants: The Next Generation” explains that these implants work by releasing a synthetic hormone (etonogestrel) that “prevents pregnancy by thickening the cervical mucus, which blocks sperm from meeting an egg, and by disrupting the menstrual cycle, including preventing ovulation.”

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which released that report in October 2007, described the implants as “small, flexible plastic rods, each about the size of a matchstick.” Once the implant is inserted into a woman’s upper arm, it’s supposed to be good for up to three years. How effective is it?

How well does it fit into adult Filipinos’“reproductive intentions”? We don’t know, and the health department hasn’t had the chance to find out. What we do know is that six months ago, in Executive Order 12, President Duterte acknowledged a 2013 survey that showed “at least six million women, of whom two million are poor, have unmet needs” for modern contraception methods.

To conservatives, only traditional family planning methods are acceptable. Let’s be clear: even with the RH law in place, no one is stopping those who want to use traditional family planning methods, if that is what their faith compels them to choose. As of 2013, 17.7 percent of Filipinos 15 to 49 years old who needed some form of family planning still chose traditional methods, like rhythm and withdrawal, according to the United Nations’World Contraceptive Use 2017 report.

To some conservatives, however, the use of public funds to buy modern contraceptives violates their right to religious freedom. The Supreme Court disagreed. To liberals, family planning should be a personal choice, and the state’s role is to ensure that those who need safe, modern contraception have access to it in public health cen t er s.

How many children you have, how many years you want between childbirths, how you reconcile your sex life with your spiritual life— these are all deeply personal decisions, to the liberal mind. And that is something the conservative position cannot seem to find the compassion to understand and make room for.