Consensus Statement on HB5043

ST. PAUL UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
Consensus Statement on HB 5043

Why do you stand idle the whole day? (Mt. 20: 6-8)

We, the Administrators, Faculty, Staff, and Students of St. Paul University System, aware of our mission, as communities of disciples, of advocating the integral formation of our young people and making them responsible persons in the community, have united to express our position on the proposed Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development or House Bill No. 5043.

Knowing that it is our moral responsibility as academic communities to enlighten the minds and form the consciences of those entrusted to us, we hereby declare the following:

1. Every attempt to improve the quality of life should not deny the greater moral responsibility to protect and defend the dignity and sanctity of life, from the moment of conception or fertilization. HB 5043, while professing to be anti-abortion, is nonetheless pro-abortifacient (Secs. 3, 4, 10). We condemn any effort to endanger the life of the unborn through artificial contraceptive methods or any other means.

2. We advocate safe motherhood that does not sacrifice the life of the unborn and ignore the unitive and procreative ends of marriage. No action, whether before, during or after the sexual act, should close the possibility of new life or kill the new life that arises. HB 5043 focuses mainly on pregnancy prevention and population control (Secs. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 16).

3. Reproductive health encompasses the entire personality, mind, and body of the person, and is geared toward the achievement of personal maturity in sexuality. HB 5043 subscribes to an understanding of reproductive health that is corrupted by anti-life activists. Moreover, it is a deception to claim that contraceptives and other methods of pregnancy and fertility regulation effectively prevent abortion and the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STDs (Sec. 4). Also, contraceptives are not essential medicines as pregnancy is not a disease and fertility is not an abnormality (Sec. 10).

4. Responsible parenthood should not be equated with population control or use of artificial contraceptives. It is responsible procreation, which includes the decision either to generously raise a large family if the couple is capable of doing so, or if there are serious reasons, not to have another child for the time being or indefinitely through natural family planning. HB 5043s family planning agenda is deceiving and is maliciously shrouded with euphemisms that deny the people authentic guidance (Sec. 4).

5. We support human sexuality education, emphasizing not only the generative dimension of sexuality, but equally, also its affective, cognitive, and religious dimensions. But we reject HB 5043s mandatory reproductive health and sex education from Grade V to 4th year high school (Sec. 12). Any attempt to inculcate in the minds of our young the contraceptive mentality, promiscuity, and licentiousness is a grave moral disorder.

6. HB 5043 violates not only the freedom of educators and students who conscientiously resist teaching and being taught what is against their religious convictions, but also the rights of parents to determine the education of their children (Sec. 12). It also punishes all health care service providers, including private doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals, who refuse to make referrals for the provision of abortifacient drugs and devices (Sec. 21). We cannot allow our university clinics to be forced to do an action contrary to our Catholic identity (Sec. 17).

7. HB 5043 penalizes any person who publicly or even privately disagrees with its premises, conclusion, or implementation (Sec. 21). We condemn such encroachment on academic freedom. It does not only violate our freedom of conscience but also our freedom to profess our convictions and beliefs.

8. HB 5043 undermines parental authority when it allows abused minors to receive reproductive health care services even without parental consent. Moreover, the kind of reproductive health care services to be given is not clear, thereby opening the possibility of abortion (Sec. 21).

9. Prominent and respected scholars have affirmed the negative correlation between population and economic growth, and highly-esteemed publications have recognized that overpopulation is one of the greatest deceptions of the last century (Sec. 2, 3, 4). Instead of using public funds to support contraceptive distribution and erroneous sex education, they must be allocated to far more pressing health needs and the alleviation of poverty itself.

10. The number of children a family wants to raise is a responsible decision of the parents and not of the State, or even of the Church. The State does not have any power to stifle such right, nor discriminate against large families (Sec. 16).

We adopt an apostolate of public opinion and responsible presence, and claim it as our moral responsibility to speak out when morality and values are undermined, and not to stand idle the whole day in the marketplace. We are strongly reminded of the words of Pope John Paul II:
Broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of rights of individual freedom, and on this basis they claim not only exemption from punishment but even authorization by the state, so that these things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of health-care systems. The fact that legislation in many countries, perhaps even departing from basic principles of their Constitutions, has determined not to punish these practices against life, and even to make them altogether legal, is both a disturbing symptom and a significant cause of grave moral decline. . . But no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life. (Evangelium Vitae, 4).

In affirmation of the statements above, we affix our signatures on the 25th day of July, 2010, on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of Humanae Vitae.