bury me in this dress

I read on the newspaper today that the Catholic Church of the Philippines seeks to ban from taking communion those who work and who are in support of ‘Ligtas Buntis’, a family planning program led by the Department of Health(DOH). I was raised as a Catholic but lost faith in their church but this issue still irks me because firstly, I am a woman, and secondly, it’s beginning to reek like the tribulations during the dark ages.

I don’t know why they are making a really big deal about using contraception. The world isn’t a safe place anymore what with the spread of STD’s such as the AIDS virus. Also, most of the people who have a lot of children are those below the poverty line and obviously can’t support raising many kids. It’s not as if the DOH is espousing premarital sex. They are urging the use of contraception to married couples so they will become educated and can have the option of living within their means. Let’s face it, people have hormones and most of the time, couples cannot just abstain from having sex. I’ve encountered women from the squatters area who bear children every year. The women are left to take care of the kids while the husbands look for a job wherever he can and they get to take home barely the minimum wage. We shouldn’t be also blind to the reality that a lot of Filipino women have roving eyes and resort to sex outside their marriage. Who knows what else he might bring home besides his daily earnings?

As for the sexually active citizens, they are the ones who are more in need of protection. They are the ones who are more prone to STD’s and unwanted pregnancies. These unwanted pregnancies also result to abortion most of the time. Since abortion isn’t supported by the Church and the government, pregnant girls have to settle with underground, unsanitary, and unsafe clinics due to desparation. If the Church doesn’t want women getting abortion, they should give them another option besides abstinence, a Utopian idea in my opinion. It would be a real miracle if the Catholic Church would come up with a way to surely control the sexual urges of the youth.

The DOH isn’t promoting abortion. It is promoting sexual education and the option to use contraceptives. By banning supporters of the ‘Ligtas Buntis’ campaign from having communion, they are turning their backs to basic human rights. Why don’t they just condemn supporters such as me as ‘excommunicated’ like the Church did during the Medieval times? It certainly feels the same way to me. I’m better off than my Catholic brothers and sisters because my conscience is clear. They, on the other hand, are being taught to feel guilty for seeking an option.