The LORD makes all things whole.
The LORD makes all things one.
For God is a God of relationships.
He called Man to be one with Woman
and He joined them by their hearts
so that they would be one flesh.
He then made their happiness whole
through the union that joined them in love
by the children that made it complete.
Human Dignity and the RH Bill
Life begins at conception: At the moment of conception, Man becomes a soul and the body comes to life.
The soul of Man contains our being, giving form to our bodies and shape to our lives.
From the soul of Man proceeds the dignity of our being human.
Now, all human beings possess this intrinsic dignity and are likewise possessed by it from conception to natural death. There is no exception to this rule. It is a natural, God-given right that we all share.
And this dignity is one that we inherit at the moment of conception.
I am speaking here, of course, about the controversial RH (Reproductive Health) bill.
Life begins at conception: At the moment of conception, Man becomes a soul and the body comes to life. This is where we shall draw the line: It is where we must each agree.
Difficult and complicated as it may seem, I should like to submit to you that if we shall fail to draw the line here, my fellow Filipino compatriots, and willingly cede this line to relativistic thinking and scientific expediency it would not bode us well as a free and human society.
For then, it would soon become easy to dehumanize any other segment of our humanity that is deemed to be either too weak or unproductive by subverting any other truth about our being human (i.e. human weaknesses and imperfections, or the existence of the human soul itself) that proceeds from our common human dignity; a dignity that each of us becomes gifted with at the moment of our conception.
I realize that the debate about this Reproductive Health bill is centered around the problem of population control and is therefore, a quality of life issue. It is good to debate this, for it is indeed true that the quality of life of many of our fellow Filipinos desperately needs uplifting.
Indeed, poverty alleviation in this Country is a significant social justice issue. But I bid us all respectfully to be forward-thinking on this issue and to lead with our minds but think with our hearts.
While I personally disagree with the absolutist tendency that seek to demonize the negative, casting some erstwhile quality of life advocates in the unhappy guise of the enemy of all sacred life; a growing trend that I realize is present also in some Church circles and uphold the value of liberty in our great democracy (yes, we are a great democracy - one of the great democracies of this world), I absolutely agree with the stand that my Mother Church has taken, unchanged and unyielding, since this problem became a problem: Life is sacred and life begins at conception.
The unborn possess (and is possessed of) the same dignity as you and I. This is why abortion is an evil we can not afford to let loose in this Country. Our laws should exist to accommodate the truth about what our society must be - human and free. Not because we are each the same but because we are all different and different in so many ways. Therefore, where our agreements should meet must be where all the good that is common to our shared humanity begins. And one of these truths is the truth about our dignity as human beings and that it begins at conception.
Because life begins at conception: At the moment of conception, Man becomes a soul and the body comes to life. This is where we must draw the line. And proceed from here.
Contraception and all the arguments that proceed from this that is contained in the controversial RH bill must take its direction from this.
Because if we linger divided on this issue like night and day, my fellow Filipino compatriots, and find no common ground where with we may as citizens and public servants together begin building solutions, we might be doing a great disservice to the littlest Filipino.
We can never take for granted that Country is an endowment.
But the bottom line for me as regards to this particular issue is this: It is not life per se that is the problem here but how we treat life: It is the strong that makes these problems persist not the weak.
Of the aspects of Country, there are four - political, economic, social, and human. These four are grounds upon which the four corners of our civilization are secured. If we consider this problem and analyze it in this light, we should develop a wider sense of perspective that should take the debate beyond just the political to all the other aspects that join together the fabric of the reality of our Country: To obtain the synergy of its parts, it is the whole that must inform it and not the other way around.
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Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.
I support Senate Resolution 217.
I personally believe that this will help to unify my Generation X and bring more workers to the work of building the nation according to the call of these present times and under the current Aquino administration.
"The work of healing the wounds of the world is the work of nations. But the work of healing the wounds of the nations is the work of individuals."