TIKYO: October 2010

For this entry, allow me to use the debate on reproductive health legislation as a springboard to engage the larger issue of secularism. What does it mean to live in a secular state?

The separation of church and state seems simple enough to many: religious groups should stay out of government affairs. For some, however, the inseparability of faith and public morality demands that the believer view governance through a religious lens, complicating the state/church binary religiously upheld by the nonreligious.

As an agnostic, I don’t hold this position, but I don’t condemn it. Many private beliefs manifest publicly, and this is not only the case with religious belief. I privately believe that consensual sex is beautiful and pleasurable, regardless of whether or not it is sanctioned by the institution of marriage. I will thus publicly defend those who have consensual sex, lobbying the state to protect them through contraceptives while accepting the attacks of zealots who think I will go to hell.

There is, in this sense, a striking similarity between pro-RH feminists like myself and the CBCP’s most ardent followers: we both believe that the personal/private is the political. The issue of secularism, therefore, is not a question of whether religious institutions can participate in public policy debates, but the manner of that participation.

The Church is an interest group, which has the right to organize and the right to free speech. On this matter, let me be categorical: it is not within anyone’s rights to prevent bishops from intervening in public policy. The problem, however, does not lie in the Church’s assertion of its right to speak, but the manner of that speech. The CBCP thinks the Church is special and expects everyone to follow suit.

In itself, the belief that one’s group is special is not automatically bad. Neither is it atypical. Marxists think they are special because only they have a labor theory of value; feminists think they are special because they are distinctly aware of gender dynamics; fraternities think they are special because they are more macho than cheerleading clubs (except in Ateneo and La Salle where, oddly, cheerleaders are hypermasculine); heck, Wiccans think they are special for reasons I have not yet investigated.

But do we accept these groups’ positions on public matters if they are based solely on their own documents or codes of internal procedure? Because this is what the CBCP does when it justifies axing the RH bill through Gaudium et Spes, Humanae Vitae or its purported sacred magisterium (I’ll get to their “science” later).

Naturally, groups can use their beliefs in public debate, but they have to show that these same beliefs address the public good. Imagine if Marxists forwarded publicly policy positions by quoting Das Kapital. All hell would break loose, with red-baiters emerging from the wood-work exclaiming, “The NPA is taking over!” and human rights violators salivating over the opportunity to develop new “counterinsurgency” tactics. I don’t know what would happen if Wiccans started quoting from the Book of Shadows. Probably nothing. Unless certain ex-Gloria advisors and their cohort are really that paranoid about subversion.

As I argued in my previous entry, if the Church wants to participate in policy discussions, it should play by the rules. It is not enough for them to insist that their positions reflect Catholic morals and that the Philippines is a majority Catholic country. We do not live in a theocracy and democracy doesn’t translate to a tyranny of the majority.

There are many Filipinos like me who do not believe that Church teaching is divinely inspired. Is it fair for the Church to determine our future based on their teachings? Nonbelievers and non-Catholics are citizens too. Konting respeto naman please.

The Church could, of course, legitimately intervene if its arguments were supported by a realistic assessment of the public good, informed by common sense and scientific evidence – criteria acceptable even to those outside the faith.

Unfortunately, the CBCP and its supporters lie about the science. For example, bishops and politicians like Kapatiran’s JC delos Reyes claim that condoms are dangerous because they have many potential side effects. But all drugs have many potential side effects; that doesn’t mean they are dangerous. Read the label for paracetamol and you will realize that it has many side effects as well – some of which sound pretty shocking. Does that mean paracetamol is dangerous and that the government should prevent poor citizens from accessing it?

Scientific validity emerges from the general consensus of the scientific community. In the case of condoms, the opinion of scientists from the World Health Organization and various drug regulatory agencies from across the globe is clear: condoms are safe. When bishops and their supporters simply ignore this, they are engaging in widespread deception, which violates the rules of democratic public discussion.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just look at the debate on conception. The CBCP claims IUDs are abortifacient because they may prevent fertilized eggs from implanting into a woman’s uterus. The fertilized egg, apparently, is a living being who must be saved from the evil contraceptive.

But here’s the catch: at least 50% of fertilized eggs fail to develop successfully even without contraception (see this article). If it is true that the non-implantation of a fertilized egg constituted abortion, abortions occur even when no form of artificial contraceptive is used. If unfertilized eggs were really lives, we’d be in a middle of a humanitarian crisis!

The Church should be consistent. If the bishops really believe these cells are lives, it should invest money in finding ways to save the billions, maybe trillions, of fertilized egg cells that “die” everyday. We save people from natural disasters, why not save egg cells from the natural disaster that is the woman’s reproductive system?

See how absurd the CBCP’s position is?

The bishops obviously lose the scientific debate. So how do they engage? They bully people. This is why they threaten politicians like PNoy through conjuring a bogus “Catholic vote” (as if all Catholics blindly followed the CBCP) or claiming that excommunication is an option for reproductive health advocates. They also label supporters of RH legislation immoral.

They are being unfair. Divergent as our opinions may be, we should acknowledge that morality is not the exclusive domain of one group. As an agnostic, I can accept that bishops draw their beliefs from a well-intentioned moral framework even if I vehemently disagree with it. Can the bishops do the same with their adversaries?

All this blackmailing and bullying on their part makes me doubt they can.

Lisandro Claudio (“Leloy”) is a PhD Candidate in the School of Historical Studies, the University of Melbourne. He is also a lecturer (on leave) in the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University.