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Pro-Life protests news article in The Manila Times
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The following letter to the editor was sent to The Manila Times to protest the erroneous reporting of Pro-Life's stand with respect to the Reproductive Health Bills in the Senate.
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August 13, 2008
The Editor
Manila Times
Dear Sir or Madam:
This is to register our strongest protest against the highly erroneous statement written by your Senior Reporter Efren L. Danao in his article “Agencies defy GMA on family planning,” which was published in your daily on August 12, 2008.
Reporting on the public hearing conducted on August 11, 2008 by the Senate Committee on Health and Demography on the reproductive health bills, Mr. Danao writes in the 6th paragraph of his news article: “Non-government agencies also backed the passage of a law on reproductive health services. Pro-Life Philippines said the issue of reproductive health boils down to the individual right of women to phase their children as they deem appropriate and based on individual circumstances. The group describes contraceptives as a health need. It said health is a human right and so the state should provide it.”
We wish to inform you that I personally attended said public hearing as the lone official representative of Pro-Life Philippines. On that occasion, I did not issue above-mentioned statement that was attributed to Pro-Life Philippines by Mr. Danao, or any statement that could directly or indirectly be construed as supportive of the passage of a law on reproductive health services. Neither does any statement to that effect appear in Pro-Life’s Position Paper, which I submitted to the Senate Committee on Health and Demography on that same occasion.
We take this opportunity to categorically state that Pro-Life Philippines stands firm on its position that the reproductive health bills contradict the Philippine Constitution and the divine and natural law; that the individual right of women to space their children as they deem appropriate is subject to the right to life for everyone, from conception to natural death; and that artificial contraceptives, some of which are abortifacients, have adverse side effects on health. For these reasons, and for many others which we cannot detail here, we strongly object, in no uncertain terms, to the passage of a reproductive health law.
In the past several hours since your erroneous article came out, we have received shocked responses from your reading public, especially those who know what Pro-Life Philippines truly stands for. Considering the wrong impression that it has caused on so many, we ask that your newspaper issue an erratum to correct your reporter’s error, and allot this letter the kind of space in your newspaper that would satisfactorily rectify the error.
Sincerely yours,
Marita F. Wasan
Executive Director
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