Friday, November 05, 2010
Corruption, lack of education, and lack of opportunity cause poverty. The poor are victims of poverty, not the cause of poverty. House Bill 96 (HB96), more commonly known as the "Reproductive Health Bill,” however, blames poverty on the presence of too many poor people.
It is focused on reducing "the problem of a bloated population and high and unwanted fertility"* and focusing on "family planning and mitigation of our population growth rate" as "allied components of the development agenda".**
HB 96 seeks to establish a government-managed program of population management and demographic targets in the Philippines.
This policy is based on bad economics. Decades of study have shown there is no direct correlation between population growth rates and economic prosperity. Population management was not the key to prosperity for other Asian neighbors, and it is not the key in the Philippines either. Such policies have a track record of economic and population failure, and have never been shown to mitigate poverty. Using the banner of “reproductive health” as a way to achieve demographic targets distracts from the issues at hand.
Reproductive health policy should focus on improving maternal care by increasing skilled attendants and improved infrastructure that allows access to healthcare.
We are opposed to House Bill 96 and call on legislators of the Philippines to reconsider support for this bill.
If in doubt about the claims made above see our recently edited and published article : "Nigeria’s Population- the Ultimate Resource, not an Economic …
By Thompson Ayodele and Olusegun Sotola. www.africanliberty.org/node/1088 "