President Duterte orders free contraceptives for women as an anti-poverty measure

Church is expected to oppose the order.

President Duterte has ordered his government to make contraceptives free for 6 million women who cannot afford to pay for them. Such a move is likely to reduce birth rates among the poor, and will draw the concern of Catholic leaders.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -  President Duterte has ordered that 6 million women who cannot afford contraceptives will now be able to get them for free. The announcement is part of a plan to reduce poverty in the Philippines to about 14 percent or less when Duterte leaves office in 2022.

Duterte signed the order which expands access to contraceptives to about six million women beginning in 2018. The government is also expected to help people manage reproduction by providing improved access to "family planning" services.

The problem with such services is that family planning is a misleading title. Family planning should involve building a family, not preventing one.

The move is likely to draw criticism from the Catholic Church which recognizes that contraceptives can interfere with the creative will of God. Chemical contraceptives that are taken into the body can also have harmful effects and end up in the water supply.

The best way to manage reproduction is through abstinence, which is more effective than any contraceptive. The Church also teaches natural family planning methods which can help couples manage their fertility without the need of resorting to drugs or implants and other devices.

Experts have found that the population of the Philippines is growing by about 1.7 percent per year, and free contraceptives will reduce that figure to 1.4 percent.

It is true the Philippines has a high birth rate and poverty is a major concern in that nation. However, the solution to these problems does not lie in contraceptives, but in the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.

By providing an ethical, moral framework for everything from reproduction, to politics and economic issues, the Church shows the failsafe way forward to well-being for all. Unfortunately, the Church is not often heard above the din of temptation, corruption and vice.

Regardless of what the government offers, it is up to the people themselves to decide how to be. We pray that the people of the Philippines remain open to God's creative will and that they find a better way to address their concerns about population and poverty.

It should be noted that some modern contraceptives and "family planning" have existed for over a century, and not one nation can prove such policies have improved the lives of the people in any discernible way.

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