Legality, morality, conscience

CEBU in the past days has seen desperate efforts by pro-population-control-and-family-planning advocates to sway some Cebuano anti-Reproductive Health (RH) Bill congressmen to their side.

The rest of the country can expect similar backdoor maneuverings in the near future. The evil and powerful empire of the pro-population control people will stop at nothing to push their devious agenda.

Right now, they can feel emboldened because of the current highly sympathetic current US administration. Tons of money are expected to come in, part of the American stimulus plan precisely geared toward population control.

We have to ask ourselves if we are willing to accept this rotten piece of unethical culture from a Western world that is degenerating not only morally but also economically now.

It seems a creeping retribution is catching up with them. Our problems are nothing compared to theirs. Ours fall more under material difficulties. Theirs clearly indicate a spiritual illness. They are losing their soul.

Just watch at the almost daily reports of suicides and massacres, even within the family! American society, for long spoiled by the short-run benefits of abortion, contraception, and other legalized moral aberrations, is cracking up. It’s breaking down.

Back in Cebu, one of the cheap gimmicks played by the pro-population control people was to conduct a survey, obviously biased, showing that the constituents of the anti-RH congressmen do not support their position.

They seem to have forgotten that lawmakers do not turn bills into laws by popularity alone. In fact, at times what is required is for them to go against the popular view.

If popularity were the dominant criterion, then no tax laws could be approved, since these would surely be unpopular bills in the first place. Yet everyone knows that these tax measures, properly deliberated upon, are necessary even if they can never be popular.

When bills are presented with important moral repercussions, the commonsensical thing to do is really to examine them thoroughly. And if serious questions are raised, they should at least be suspended, even shelved.

The phenomenon we are observing these days is that many of our public officials, who also are officially Christians or Catholics, are trying to legislate morality. This is a dangerous development. They are mixing up things.

Our legal system has to find its moorings in a sound moral system. Now morality is eminently a religious, spiritual matter, whose province belongs more to the Church than to the state.

Whenever various and even conflicting positions on a moral issue are made by different church groups and sects, then the political leaders better avoid making any positions unless there’s immediate need for political and legal actions.

In this case, the reason for their political or legal actions is not anymore matters of conscience, but rather matters of public good, as in peace and order, public decency, etc.

For them to legislate in conscience matters makes them overstep their authority and competence. We have to respect freedom of consciences, a part of religious freedom, by not favoring one position over another. Just let things be, as long as there is no public disorder.

I in conscience am against contraception. But another person, also in conscience, may be for contraception. No problem. We don’t have to fight. We can respect each other, as long as no human and unjust law forces me to support his position, nor him mine. We’ll discuss it amicably.

Matters of conscience are not settled by voting. Everyone should be left to follow what his conscience tells him. And if I remember right, religious freedom is still sanctioned by our constitution.

The settling of these conscience matters is not the responsibility of the state, nor of the government, and much less of politicians.

That is why, whenever our politicians stray into moral issues, they better be ready to answer questions that will be raised by the Church. They cannot complain about violations of Church-state separation, since in the first place they are already intruding into the competence of the Church.

That is why I would like to ask Congresswoman Nerissa Soon Ruiz to reconsider her position. She says the RH bill respects freedom and will raise people’s quality of life.

Good! But for goodness sake, she’s already inputting a lot of conscience elements coming from a clearly ideological school into her legislative work. That’s foul!