Contraceptives Budget Removed

[Jollygoodfellow]

WTF

Whenever there's any hope of at least a partial solution to many problems something puts an end to it. In another story the HIV situation is getting out of hand where at least condoms can help but now they reduce the amount of users who may have used them for protection or birth control. Oh well another million starving kids on the street soon.

 

 

Funds earmarked by Benigno Aquino scrapped despite law mandating state provision of birth control to the poor

 

The legislature in the mainly Catholic Philippines has axed the government’s budget for contraceptives, despite a law mandating that the state should provide them to the poor.

 

The health secretary, Janette Garin, confirmed on Wednesday that the department’s 2016 budget for contraceptives had been scrapped when it passed through congress.

 

“This will have a huge effect since a lot of mothers depend on what the department of health provides,” Garin said.

 

She said the department would seek private donors to provide funds for contraceptives.

 

Foreign and local authorities have long called for improved birth control in the Philippines, which has one of Asia’s highest birth rates as well as high maternal mortality rates.

 

The country has a population of about 100 million, roughly 25% of whom live in poverty.

 

The government of President Benigno Aquino had allocated a sum for contraceptives in the 2016 budget but this was removed as the legislature was debating the bill, the health department said. Garin said she only learned of the budget cut on Monday.

 

The government and the dominant Catholic church have fought over the issue for years. The church has long opposed efforts to make birth control more widely available.

 

It was only in 2014 that the supreme court finally upheld a reproductive health law, striking down more than a dozen petitions against it from church-backed groups.

 

The law requires government health centres to supply free condoms and birth control pills, as well as mandating sex education in schools. It also requires that public health workers receive family planning training. Medical care after an abortion is to be legalised.

 

Nearly 80% of the population is Catholic, an inheritance of three centuries of Spanish colonial rule that ended in the late 1800s. The Catholic church opposes birth control and abortion and its hold is strong in the Philippines, where divorce and abortion are illegal.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/philippines-axes-contraceptive-budget-birth-control

[Richieboy67]

This is why religion and religious beliefs need to be kept out of governing.

[Methersgate]

Stupid, venal, cruel, EVIL.

If, as I very much doubt, there is a Hell, then all the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church in the Philippines should roast in it for ever

[Guy F.]

Seems like they want to assure a continuing supply of desperate, poor children to provide... erm... services for pervs.

[jpbago]

The country has a population of about 100 million, roughly 25% of whom live in poverty.

 

   Large, poor, under educated families are easier to control at election time. Give then a little and they give you their vote. Tell them how it is and they will not argue.