Friday Fax
Volume 9, Number 4 | January 13, 2006
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Dear Colleague, We report today on an attempt to impose a draconian two-child limit on Filipino families. The Filipino Congress will vote on this coercive China-like proposal this coming Monday. All of our friends in the Philippines are urged to let your feelings be known immediately to your Congressmen. Spread the word. Yours sincerely, Austin Ruse President |
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Filipino Congress Considers Coercive
Two-Child Limit
The Filipino Congress is set to vote on Monday on a bill that critics say would discriminate against families with more than two children and would require the Catholic Church to provide sex education in schools and to pay for the sterilizations of its employees. According to reports from the Filipino Family Fund, various Filipino legislators, arguing that the Philippines needs a much more aggressive policy of population control, introduced a bill that is strikingly similar to the One-Child policy of Communist China. The "Responsible Parenting and Population Control Act of 2005" includes a preference in education for two-child families, free access to abortifacients, mandatory sex education for children as young as 10-years-old and imprisonment penalties for health care providers who refuse to perform or provide sterilization services for a population that is 87 percent Catholic and 5 percent Muslim. Eileen Macapanas Cosby, Executive Director of the Filipino Family Fund, told the Friday Fax that the bill "paves the way" for "the kind of human rights nightmare that is already" taking place "in China, with its coercive sterilization and contraception practices." She calls the proposed bill "China-lite." Cosby said the bill's sponsor is reporting that he has the votes of 135 of 238 members of the Filipino House. If the bill were to pass the House it would go to the Filipino Senate where Cosby said that another piece of legislation would be attached making it even more dangerous. "It will provide for a centralized bureaucracy that would be run by three non-elected officials from NGOs," she said. This new bureaucracy, she said, would oversee the implementation of the legislation. Cosby said that Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is likely to veto the bill if it passes both houses of Congress. Like the American system, the bill would then return to Congress where it must receive two thirds of the vote in both chambers to override the veto. Dr. Pia de Solenni, Director of Life and Women's Issues at the Family Research Council, told the Friday Fax that "the activists" who were "working on" drafting the "Responsible Parenting and Population Control Act of 2005" and bringing it into the Legislature were "inspired by radical feminists in the West." She also pointed out that these Filipino activists have a "myopic vision of what women's issues are." Most Filipino women, she said, worry most about opportunities to have healthy children, irrespective of how many they choose to have. |
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Family & Human Rights Institute). Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required. Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427 New York, New York 10017 Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291 E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org Website: www.c-fam.org |