What is your opinion about the practice of family planning? Are you for it or against it?
I strongly support the advocacy of practicing family planning. As defined, family Planning services support people's decisions about when, or if, they would like to have children by offering education, counseling, and birth control methods. This is a program a couple should engage in considering that unplanned pregnancy brings about consequences from a micro-level like the couple themselves, up until the macro-level like the country.
In terms of micro-level, couples who have not engaged in any family planning have a higher risk of compromising the well-being of their children growing up. Food security, education involvement, medical care assistance, emotional support are being deprived to growing children since the parents' attention is divided beyond their ability. And at times, the parents are experiencing distress dealing with their unplanned pregnancy. The costs of unintended pregnancy are classified as intangible costs, which are not just financial but can indeed cause a decrease in the quality of life of these mothers and their families. In fact, the real damage to quality of life is incalculable. These high rates of negative consequences include exposure to suicide and depression rate, poor nutrition during gestation, mental health issues, unstable family relationships, experiencing physical and psychological violence, risk of miscarriage and having low birth weight infants, and delayed onset of prenatal care.
Besides this, I strongly believe that unplanned pregnancy accounts for the appreciable socioeconomic declination. The incidents of unwanted pregnancy heighten the country's population, thus a need for an emergency call by the government. The government generally plans to control this growth of births (especially wanted births as well as orphans and illegitimate births) imposing an extra burden on public funding of the governments which inevitably affects economic efficiency and leads to economic regression. Additionally, unplanned pregnancy brought by lack of family planning engagement extends its effects from labor market struggles, higher crime rates, more abortions, increased levels of household stress, and others that have nothing to do with public balance sheets.
Well, the facts presented above can be validated by what the Philippine setting has undergone for decades and is still experiencing currently. We have witnessed, backed up by scholastic studies, how the majority of the families belonging to the lower socioeconomic bracket are dealing with their expanding family and declining quality of life. From this, I infer that it is only ethical and just to establish the practice of family planning to protect the well-being of the mother, partner, baby, and society.
Reference:
Yazdkhasti, M., Pourreza, A., Pirak, A., & Abdi, F. (2015). Unintended Pregnancy and Its Adverse Social and Economic Consequences on Health System: A Narrative Review Article. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 44(1), 12–21. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449999/
Are you in favor of the Reproductive Health Law and its provisions? Elaborate on your answer.
I am in favor of the Reproductive Health Law considering that its provisions include universal access to methods of contraception, fertility control, sexual education, and maternal care. What the people lack to understand during the peak of the debate is that the Reproductive health Law is not a population growth and control management law, rather it unfolds a different perspective- that is, allowing women and their families to decide the number and spacing of their children through accessible family planning. Well, the Reproductive Health Law is not a primary driver to population control but could be a complementary proposition to the pre-existing laws.
What's plausible about this law is that it promotes and offers the use of both traditional and modern family planning methods. Undoubtedly, not all women support the use of contraceptives such as condoms and pills and would opt to go for natural methods, as this practice may oppose their values and beliefs. The law, although usually misinterpreted, will not force you to engage in modern methods, rather, it will help women, in their full conscience, achieve such reproductive goals while maintaining respect and being free from discrimination.
The second argument that points why the Reproductive Health Law is a favorable one is that it allows equal societal equity. While it is true that upper-class women can opt for whatever contraceptives they wish to access, the truth of the matter is that the women of poor communities need the kind of support that the government can give. This then reveals one of its provisions which is to increase the quality of reproductive health teaching to everyone, including the marginalized, leading to a domino effect of having a better woman and children's quality of life. Again, access to sexual-reproductive education is, and should be, part of everyone's rights.
More than the points briefly explained above, there are other grounds presented in the Reproductive Health Law that are beneficial for the citizens in the long run. The unending debates regarding this matter might have been influenced by their religious values and long-then beliefs, but one should be more open to propositions as this law seeks nothing but a holistic quality of life while following a moral path.
References:
9 News & Current Affairs. (2014). Opposing Views Episode 34 - Does the Philippines Need a Reproductive Health Law? [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egaMe7vqeks&t=448s
Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10354 | GOVPH. (2013, March 18). Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2013/03/18/implementing-rules-and-regulations-of-republic-act-no-10354/