When will they lift TRO on RH Law?

THE administration is out to fully implement the provisions of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law. But its hands are tied because of a TRO filed against the bill’s proposed use of contraceptive drugs and devices.

The opponents of RH Law would like to delete that provision and instead use the so-called “calendar method,” among others.

Proponents, on the other hand, contend that that method is ineffective and, no pun intended, outdated. That is why the Philippines continues to add 900,000 births, thus, staggering a birth rate of an estimated one million babies a year, reports said.

Quoting experts, proponents contend that Filipino women deprived of contraceptives are not only burdened by unwanted pregnancies but must face the danger of childbirth and pregnancy complications. They say there is an average of 14 deaths a day attributed to pregnancies, mostly unplanned.

Also mentioned by the proponents is a projected increase of 40 percent in the volume of the latter predicaments, their sources reported.

In August of 2016, the Second Division of the Supreme Court issued the TRO. The decision cancelled, the certificates of registration of some 77 contraceptive drugs and devices.

The above is a gist of an e-mail sent to and paraphrased by this writer.

It is an open secret that many in the Duterte administration, and lately, former President Fidel V. Ramos, see in the RH Law as “the people’s right to choose which family planning program or contraceptive methods to use.”

Proponents said it is ironic that no less than a personality belonging to the Church disagreed in the reasoning of those opposed to the RH Law. She said:

“I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion, that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think, in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born, but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed.”

Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, a Catholic nun, also added: “And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”