Born not to live

WHILE eagerly awaiting DOH’s implementation of the reproductive health law (now that the Chief Justice has clarified that the TRO is only for one drug) I thought I might get this in edgewise.

In two recent columns I used “probirth” to refer to “pro-life” groups. I picked it up from American Benedictine nun Sr. Joan D. Chittister who first used it to expose the hypocrisy of anti-family planning/abortion groups in the U.S.

These, she claims, are merely probirth because they just want babies to be born without caring if they will be fed and educated to have a life. For many of them it’s less about morality than of a Republican ideal that frowns on federal funding for entitlements like family planning and abortion clinics for the poor.

I believe the term applies to many so-called pro-life people in the Philippines. They just want babies to be born without regard for the parents’ and children’s life after birth. My term for them is “pro-existence” not “prolife.” Helping the poor, for instance, is not a priority in many Catholic parishes but meetings of organizations and ministering of sacraments to those who can afford the fees or are not otherwise inextricably tied to the grim business of survival.

Other groups that might not be pro-life are those that scream against judicial and extrajudicial killings. Many of them are not even “pro-existence” but merely “anti-death.” The more hypocritical among them have less than pure motives like...

… Opposition politicians just want to get back into power by pouncing on the present administration’s mistakes (Kian’s killing is one such major blunder) but forgetting the many similar killings they allowed during their term… … Without fail, the left agitate to create a revolutionary situation against all administrations. By their ideology no administration can do anything right…

… Finally, some bishops assert their teaching authority without any moral ascendancy because they are sadly wanting in positive action programs to help the barely existing poor. The poor are not “blessed” in many Catholic parishes because after bells have tolled it’s back to the business as usual of ritual acts of piety.

To condemn all killings even for a noble reason is not yet pro-life. Prolife does not start until one initiates or participates in activities that provide people access to a life that, more than bare physical existence, is truly and fully human.

There’s a world of difference between existing and living. Accordingly, we have killed many more poor people (than the police ever could) by our inaction against the misery of their bare existence. And until the reproductive health law is implemented many babies will be born to exist but not to live.