[Persuasive Essay:]

Choose Life!

[by : the one who won the world of nowhere]

Killing is against the law of man and of God. What’s worse than that is taking away the life of an innocent being ----- a baby. It is like ending the creation of a would-be-beautiful-beginning of a new life; taking away his right to breathe nature’s gift of fresh air, to walk, to whine, to giggle and to feel the hugs and kisses of those who care. Such immorality is but the most horrible thing that anyone could possibly imagine, but numerous acts of “killing-the-innocent” have been brutally done in other parts of the world and Philippines is not an exception. Thousands of babies lost their precious lives because their young and irresponsible mothers have undergone abortion. These killings need to be put to an end. We need to be united as a nation and be responsible enough. I have the courage to say that one solution is to get rid of the RH Bill.

Saying “no” to RH bill is the other way of saying “ I am against people killing people” or “No to killing the innocent ones.” Maybe the government only wanted what seems to be “good” for the people, but like the famous Robin Hood, their actions are wrong. Wrong actions made from good intentions, especially about solving big problems such as population explosion and its chain of problems like poverty and malnutrition would only bring disaster to the people.

Let me first state some facts about the RH Bill in our country. “The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011”¹ is the whole title given to this proposed bill in our country. This title may sound good but the truth is, as we all know, it aims to stop the birth of innocent babies, and worse is that it pushes Artificial Family Planning thru the use of condoms and other contraceptives.

The RH Bill is a disruptive law which is full of disadvantages. Timothy Laws, chairman of the Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines Inc., a multisectoral organization that moves to preserve Filipino family values and opposes the Reproductive Health Bill said: “Contraception changes the way people think about sex (and) marriage. A ‘contraceptive society’ creates promiscuity and sexual liberation.”² In other words, pre-marital sex is a major immorality that the RH Bill promotes as it creates a notion that nothing is wrong with having sex outside marriage as long as the contraceptives are being used.

Let us observe other countries that are open to using contraceptives. The Inquirer reported that: “The US divorce rate increased by 250 percent within 20 years since contraception was introduced, while the rate of “unmarried cohabitation” grew by 1368 percent. More than half of children born to girls younger than the age of 18 are fathered by adult men and over 50 percent of teenagers believed “out of wedlock” childbearing was a “worthwhile lifestyle.”³These numbers are not lying to us; it may be from a different place but the situation is similar. Yes, our country is not composed of sinless people as if no incident of pre-marital sex was known, but it is harder to solve these problems if we let RH Bill rule our lives; there would be a growing number of abortions, broken families, early parenthood, rape, AIDS, STDs and what else?, a dark future for all especially for the young ones who are becoming the major victims of this catastrophe.

In an article of “U.S. News and World Report”, evolutionary anthropologist Lionel Tiger recognized what Pope Paul VI predicted in 1968: “Widespread use of birth control would have disastrous consequences on our society. Those negative effects include impoverishment of women, marginalization of men, soaring numbers of abortions and out-of-wedlock births, and a general worsening of relationships between men and women. This decline, argues Tiger, happened because of the massive use of the birth control pill.”⁴ Look at how disastrous the people were during that generation! What’s much worse is that it is being brought to us to continue its evil agenda. Mortal sins have been unknowingly done since men invented an instrument that aimed to kill lives. Unborn babies are not the sole victims of these schemes, everybody is a loser.

Time cannot be turned back, and this connotes that the RH Bill can no longer be undone, but with our united stand against it there is a big chance of eliminating the bill and totally dissolving it. Nigerian priest Paul Ashoro of the Somascan Fathers said that the religious community in Nigeria had opposed the government’s legislation of a bill promoting contraception and succeeded.⁵ This is one great proof that with us helping the church to fight RH Bill, we would be saving our lives and the lives of the next generation.

We know that the RH Bill is not the solution to the sudden population explosion, the real answer to the problem is by means of the Natural Family Planning(NFP) Method. If the government wanted a safe and moral way of controlling population explosion they should have solely endorsed the Natural Family Planning and the Church would willingly support them. Paul Schlenker, a Pro-Life Catholic, stated in his blog site: “If there was no artificial birth control, people would think twice about having sex outside of a marital context. This would result in a decrease in divorces due to marital infidelity, a reduction in STD's, a reduction in the number of unwanted pregnancies, which in return would result in a reduction in the number of abortions. NFP could be used to regulate the number of births to avoid a population explosion.”⁶Mr. Schlenker is right, people are not afraid to engage in pre-marital sex because they feel secured because of the contraceptives they use. The NFP is the best family planning method because it centers on morality and respect for life. If these people could only have similar thoughts and principles like Mr. Schlenker, problems would not arise.

It is only in our hands that our future depends upon. Self-discipline and faith in God should never be out of our minds and it should be seen in our actions. Finding solutions to the problems we face is good but let us remember not to cause harm to others. As long as the RH Bill haunts our country, we will not stop fighting against it; with your help, our voice will surely be heard and soon we will win this battle. As long as we are united in doing the right things impossible is nothing.

¹http://www.consciencelaws.org/issues-legal/legal055.html

² “Philippines’ ‘Vatican’ shows force against RH Bill”by MaricarCinco.http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/61047/philippines’-‘vatican’-shows-force-against- rh-bill

³Philippines’ ‘Vatican’ shows force against RH Bill. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/61047/philippines’-‘vatican’-shows-force-against-rh-bill

⁴Fr Phil Bloom, “Negative Consequences of the Pill and Positive Benefits of Fertility Appreciation”