More Ateneo profs endorse RH Bill

By: InterAksyon.com
August 19, 2012 8:26 AM

More faculty members of the Ateneo de Manila University have signed on to a statement in support of House Bill 4244, or The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Bill.

Thirty-three professors added their names to the statement, again stressing that they took their position as individuals, and that they are “in no way speaking for the Ateneo de Manila University, the Society of Jesus, or the rest of their colleagues.”

In updating its list of signatories, Prof. Marita Concepcion Castro Guevara, on behalf of the other signatories, said they had taken out one name erroneously included in the original list of statement endorsers.

“One name was included in error,” Prof. Guevara said. “We apologize to Mr. Arturo A. Valencia for including his name, as he has not indicated any intention to support the RH Bill. We further apologize for whatever misperception and misunderstanding this may have caused to the person of Mr. Valencia and to the organizations to which he belongs.”

160 Ateneo Professors Endorse RH Bill

By: InterAksyon.com
August 13, 2012 7:40 AM

Faculty members of the Ateneo de Manila University on Monday released a statement in support of House Bill 4244, or The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Bill.

“(We) believe that the RH Bill is a vital piece of legislation that needs to be passed urgently,” the professors said. “It upholds the constitutional right of couples to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions; honors our commitments to international covenants and conventions; and promotes the reproductive health and reproductive rights of Filipinos, especially of those who are most marginalized on this issue – our women, poor families, and young people.”

The professors – coming from the AdMU Loyola Schools and the Ateneo Professional Schools – the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health (ASMPH), the Ateneo Law School (ALS), the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG), and the Ateneo Graduate School of Business (AGSB) – stressed that they signed the statement as individuals, and that they are “in no way speaking for the Ateneo de Manila University, the Society of Jesus, or the rest of their colleagues.”

In all, 160 faculty members signed the statement, which we publish in full below.

__________________________________________________

HUMAN RIGHTS, STATE OBLIGATIONS, AND THE RH BILL

Declaration of Support for House Bill 4244 (The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Bill) by individual faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University

A-Stat survey: Most Ateneans Support RH Bill

By Katerina D. Francisco on July 31, 2011 in News

IN A survey conducted by the Ateneo Statistics Circle for The GUIDON last June, several Ateneans expressed support for the controversial Reproductive Health bill.

142 out of 172 respondents from the sophomore, junior, and senior batches are in favor of the bill, citing its provisions for greater access to reproductive health information and services.

Other reasons cited for the support of the bill include its perceived effect in controlling population growth, its benefits to the economy in the long run, less unwanted pregnancies and people empowerment through education.

Those who disagreed with the bill cited its non-consideration of moral principles as the lead reason.

Some 25 respondents also specified other reasons to oppose the bill. The frequent answers include its perceived stand against the Catholic Church, the possibility of being a breeding ground for corruption through the use of public funds, and the need for further revisions due to unclear and controversial provisions.

Majority of the respondents (85%) are also in agreement with the 14 professors’ position paper.

“It’s offensive to even suggest that Catholics have no right to their own choice because of their religion,” one respondent said.

A Jesuit Sociologist on RH Bill

Commentary (Phil. Daily Inquirer, May 5, 2011)

“FOR HE IS OUR PEACE” (EPHESIANS 2:14)
John J Carroll. S.J.
John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues

As I watched Christ’s faithful gather symbolically in the Upper Room on Holy Thursday, around Calvary’s cross on Good Friday, and at the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, a way of joy flowed over me.

Swept up like a chip of wood on the surface of a boiling wave by the power of the community singing, I recalled the unity in faith and hope of the millions who gathered 25 years ago at Edsa.

But still there was an undercurrent of sadness due to the realization that the official Church no longer stands with a united people but with one part of a nation divided: and that the struggle is carried on, no longer in the respectful manner of the crowds at Edsa, but in an atmosphere of personal animosity and demonizing.

The sadness is made deeper by the sense that in the debate over the RH bill, the Church seems to have backed itself into a no-win situation. If the bill passes over the total opposition of the hierarchy, there will be gloating in some quarters and a sense of “Who’s afraid of the big bad Church?” If it is defeated by the opposition of the Church, I fear a powerful backlash at the Church’s “interference in politics” and “reliance on political power rather than moral suasion” — the beginnings of an anti-clericalism such as overwhelmed formerly Catholic bastions such as Spain and Ireland.

With all due respect for the position of the Philippine bishops, I do not see that total opposition to the bill necessary, once one gets past the polemics. First of all, the bill does not legalize contraceptives; they are already legal and may be purchased in any drugstore. What the bill proposes to do — rightly or wrongly — is to subsidize the cost of contraception as well as natural family planning to the poor.
Neither does the bill legalize abortion; on the contrary it reaffirms the constitutional prohibition.

It is highly probable in fact that if contraceptives become more available to the poor, the scandalous number of illegal abortions performed annually will be dramatically reduced.

Being Atenean, Supporting RH

By on February 1, 2011 in Opinion

by Risa Hontiveros

It was late 2009, and I was in Paris on a French Foreign Ministry exposure program for politicians, when Marichi Castro Guevarra e-mailed me the position paper in favor of the Reproductive Health Bill that she and about 10 other Ateneo professors had published, I cried for joy.

Finally, an acknowledgement from my alma mater that the free will it, and others teach, is a gift from God and the conscience whose formation is one of the aims of Catholic education are at play in the RH debate. That debate had been characterized by anti-RH Bill tarpaulins hung outside parish churches, homilies and prayers of the faithful against “anti-life” bills and the surreal specter of being refused Holy Communion.

No matter that Father President took the trouble afterwards to issue a statement that the position paper was not the University position on the bill. Even after that, about 70 other professors associated themselves with Marichi’s [Guevarra] pioneering paper. In prophetic character, it was like the young Ateneans’ “Down from the Hill” in The GUIDON four decades earlier. Finally, my beloved Ateneo had broken its silence about what is one of the battles of our lifetime—as women, as Filipinos, as Catholics.