BICOL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

MASTER IN NURSING
College of Nursing
Legazpi City

Name: ARVEE TEE LODRONIO, RN, EMR-B

Year: MN II
Subject: Reproductive Health in Nursing
Topic: Reaction Paper on Reproductive Health Bill (House Bill 5043 of 2008)
Professor: Nera Galan, RN, MAN

Reproductive Health Bill was introduced by Congresswoman Bellaflor J. Angara

-Castillo is also known as “Reproductive Health Care Act of 2002”,assembled at Senate
and House of Representatives of the Philippines, and now known as House Bill 5043 of
2008. It’s been years since the bill was approved in the senate, due to some church
conflicts, biomedical ethical issues and some scientific research conflicts. Today there
are still lots of Filipino citizen who are now fully aware about this bill and why this bill
was imposed.
Before I write this reaction paper I had to read the Bill twice and read some
articles, reaction and comments in the internet I had read books and research which is
related to reproductive health, sex education and Bioethics, for me to fully understand
what was the RH bill all about and the reason of the creation of this bill.
Poverty, the main problems that the Philippine is facing today and they say that
the primary factors that lead to poverty is due to overpopulation, the Philippines has a
population of 64,318,120 in 1990. Today the population is ballooning and estimated to
over 94 million according to latest census and the top 12 th country having the most
population. The population is growing by about 2 percent a year, giving the Philippines
one of the world’s highest population-growth rates.
This is one of the reasons of the creation of the Reproductive Health bill to give a
solution to poverty by eradicating the overpopulation problem, by implementing family
planning, sex education and prevent the sexually transmitted disease.
 The average population density in the Philippines is 311 persons per sq km (805
per sq mi). However, the distribution of the population is uneven; some areas are
virtually uninhabited, while others are densely populated. The percentage of the
population living in rural areas has steadily declined in recent decades. It decreased
from 68 percent in 1970 to 57 percent in 1990. By 2000 urban dwellers outnumbered
rural residents, with only 42 percent of the population living in rural areas (Encarta
2009).
According to Dr. Angelita Miguel-Aguirre of the Philippine College of Physicians
and Professor 1 in University of Santo Tomas,Dept. of Medicine and Dept. of Bioethics.
Metro Manila is overcrowded because 13% of our population lives in NCR which is 0.2
or 1/5 of 1% of the entire land area of the Philippines. People flock to the city because
nothing much is going on in their home provinces.

The RH bill
Family Planning information and services
The Family planning reproductive health program includes both natural and
artificial ways of family planning and this includes the birth control pills, but is it really
“healthy” to practice this contraception. The bill aims to improve the health care which
focuses on reproductive health, and according to House Bill 5043 Section 4c, they
define reproductive health as the state of complete physical, mental and social well-
being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the
reproductive system and to its function and processes. This implies that people are able
to have a satisfying and safe sex life and women and men attain equal relationships in
matters related to sexual relations and reproduction. If their aim is to improve the
reproductive health there for all family programs and practices should all be safe and
healthy.

Treatment of Breast and Reproductive Tract Cancers and other Gynecological

Conditions
Numerous studies shows that birth control pills has carcinogenic properties
since the development of the synthetic estrogens in 1938 by Sir Edward Charles Dodds
finally the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health
Organization (WHO) announced on July 29, 2005 that after thorough review of the
published scientific literature, it has concluded that combined estrogen-progestogen
oral contraceptives (and combined estrogen-progestogen menopausal therapy) are
carcinogenic to humans. (Group I category) This category is used when there is
sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and evidence said that it can cause
breast cancer and cervical cancer by 44%. Pills can also cause some reproductive
health side effects like decrease in libido and infertility which is primarily conflict to the
8th element of reproductive health program in RH bill which is the treatment of breast
and reproductive tract cancers and other gynecological conditions.

Prevention of Abortion and Management of its Complication

Another component in reproductive health program is the prevention of abortion
and management of its complications which is stated under section 4 f (5). For me
killing of human being is wrong and abortion is a form of killing the unborn child,
because the unborn child is also a human being, it is wrong morally, ethically, wrong in
my profession since I am a health care provider wrong in my religion as a Roman
Catholic as it is said in the Bible, and most of all it is wrong for what I believe, because
as a human being I value life, I value my existence in this world and I also wish that
those unborn child could experience the life in this world.
Contraceptives came from the Latin word “contra” means against or prevent
“ceptive” means conception or fertilization; examples of these contraception are birth
control pills and intrauterine device. But this does not actually prevent conception
instead this acts primarily by preventing the embryo to implant and that is why IUD and
birth control pills are called abortifacients. As a graduate in medical field I believe that
life starts at the beginning of fertilization because that is the start of the earliest
development of human being and embryo is already a fertilize ovum having a 46
chromosomes came from both mother and father and having its own genetic identity
just waiting to be implant to the uterus for nourishment, without implantation the
fertilized ovum will die, there for birth control pills and IUD’s does not stop conception it
is inclusive of abortion to complete the cycle of the culture of death.
 It is obviously that it is primarily violate the Article 2 Section 12, which states that
life must be respected from the moment of conception until natural death.
Until now US government has banned federal funding on human-embryo
research including fertilized ovum because of some issues regarding biological and
medical ethics.
Another example is in (IVF) In-vitro fertilization and (ZIFT) Zygote Intrafalopian
Transfer has lot of ethical issue that arisen due to the fate of the fertilized eggs in
laboratory dish that are not implanted and the most recommended are the (GIFT)
Gamete Intrafalopian Transfer because fertilization occurs naturally in the fallopian tube
and (ICSI) Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection because there is only one ovum has been
fertilized.

Prevention and Treatment of Infertility and Sexual Dysfunction

Sterilization in a form of ligation or vasectomy. Let’s go back to Section 4 C, or
the Definition of Reproductive Health, the state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters
relating to the reproductive system and to its function and processes. Removing
and destroying a part of the body for me is unhealthy and I don’t consider it healthy
because a healthy reproductive system should have a complete physical, relating to the
reproductive system and to its function and process and it is state on the definition itself.
In addition to that it is also the state of mental and social-well being not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity, however tubal ligation has adverse effect like
hemorrhage and bleeding, increase risk of heavy menstruation in long term, increase
future gynecological hysterectomy and post tubal ligation syndrome. Vasectomy on the
other hand develop some autoimmune response disorder like thrombophlebitis,
prolonged fever, general lymph node enlargement, recurrent infection, skin eruption,
multiple sclerosis, liver dysfunction, prostate cancer and exacerbates atherosclerosis.
Some effects noted are psychological disorder, sperm granuloma, pain in the scrotum,
congestive epididymis and post vasectomy pain.
For me the provision of the reproductive health bill can lessen or solve the
poverty and overpopulation problems in some ways, but it can not easily solve the
poverty alone and I am not against about this or if the issue here is about sex then we
can do nothing about it because sex will always exist, so all we have to do is to lessen
the diseases and lessen the incident of unwanted pregnancy by following and practicing
some programs in reproductive health bill which is morally and ethically accepted.
If the issue here is over population I can say that based on the data shown from
different article our problem is not really overpopulation but population maldistribution.
The concentration of population in the urban areas is due to the underdevelopment of
the countryside. How about Macao and Singapore they also have a population
maldistribution problem and they are on the top, but why is it that is country is far more
richer than us in fact that they have limited economical resources compared to us. Even
if we cut our population into half this wont still makes our country richer in the next 5
years or more as long as this corrupt government official are still included in this
population. Poverty is caused by many more crucial factors like lack of education, lack
of opportunities, lack of discipline and most of all graft and corruption.
If we want to solve the poverty, we should first focus on how to solve the graft
and corruption in our country, find a solution for this maldistribution of population in the
country, make additional job for this overpopulated country to increase our economy
because we have lots of man power we just lack job opportunity, if they really want to
decrease the population while increasing the opportunity and the econmy they should
work on more opportunities for the Filipinos here and abroad.
So we should solve this problem starting from us because all of us created this
problem by voting government official that make us more poorer, and the answer to
poverty lies on our vote. This problem will solve simply by voting wisely and work hardly.

Reference:
 The consolidated Reproductive Health Bill in the House of Representative,
Angelita Miguel-Aguirre, MD, FPCP. Fellow Diplomat Philippine College of
Physician, Professor 1, UST Dept of Medicine and Bioethics.
 Filipino Family Survey, Conducted By: The HB&A-ARO Research Group Metro Manila
December 2-9, 2009
 Encarta Encyclopedia 2009, Microsoft Corporation.
 Wikipedia Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_
density