Breakthroughs Today

The great gap that separates medicine and morality is as deep as the difference between faith and science. And the medical definition of "abortion" is a classic example to this great divide. LOTS of misunderstandings are avoided when people know where the others came from. In a way of speaking, they must be on the same page. Lots of misunderstandings too surround the RH Bill. Opposing camps simply are not on the same page. And, apparently it is on the term “abortion,” grossly misunderstood. I was watching the movie Spy Game, starring Robert Redford, when this realization came to me. Sniper “Boy Scout” (Brad Pitt) was in a mission to assassinate an unofficial American enemy when an enemy copter obstructed his line of shot, looking for them. The enemy knew. Boy Scout’s sidekick urged that they abort the mission. But the sniper stayed on, and took the killing shot. Merriam-Webster defines “abort” as “to become checked in the development so as to degenerate or remain rudime

THE irony of abortion had been captured by the often funny late US president Ronald Reagan who said: “Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.” What he did not explicitly say was that those who have not been born will never advocate abortion. But here in the Philippines, despite the criminal ban, women can get away with it in droves. The New York-based human rights group, Center for Reproductive Rights, noted that an estimated 560,000 of induced abortions took place in 2008 alone. And from this mothers who chose to intentionally terminate pregnancy, 90,000 (or 16 percent) sought treatment for complications; while a thousand women died. Despite its proponents’ assertion that abortion is relatively safe when performed in clinics, once the criminal ban is lifted, it remains foolish to presume that it is. Not only because scientific trials that back up the drugs used in abortion can only assure a probability for safety, it is common sense that... [ Read more.

THE Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a New York-based human rights group, released on July 14 a study entitled “Forsaken Lives: The Harmful Impact of the Philippine Criminal Abortion Ban” to provide an argument on their call to have abortion legalized in the country. The study mentioned the more frequently used unsafe abortion methods such "as hilot (abdominal massage), use of a catheter, and intake of a labor-inducing drug.” It argues that our anti-abortion laws “violate international law and major political commitments” in protecting women’s health and rights... ( Read more. ) This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 27 October 2010.