Letter of Support for the Gates Foundation's Family Planning Initiative
Melinda Gates is right when she said that family planning or the use of modern contraception is “totally uncontroversial topic” and certainly, there is no controversy in men and women deciding when to have children and having the access to information and services they need to take care of themselves and their families.
The Catholics for Reproductive Health (C4RH), a national organization of progressive Filipino Catholics who believe that reproductive health is a human right, lauds Melinda Gates for bravely standing her ground as an advocate for poor women and being true to her Catholic sense of mission for social justice. Ms. Gates is actively campaigning for family planning support. Her foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is organizing the Family Planning Summit in London coinciding with the World Population day on July 11, 2012. The summit aims to mobilize “global policy, financing, commodity, and service delivery commitments to support the rights of an additional 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries to use contraceptive information, services, and supplies.”
Melinda Gates is one of the overwhelming Catholic majority who support and agree on the use of contraception to plan their families. It is one of our basic human freedoms and rights. The use of contraception in family planning is not about coercion or abuse but of empowerment and choice and the chance for people to take care of their health and welfare.
It is unfortunate that the conservative Catholic hierarchy refuses to see the need to promote life-saving measures like family planning and contraception. In fact, the Vatican has played significantly and in many cases, successfully, in influencing public policies that limit family planning services. In the Philippines, the Catholic hierarchy has successfully blocked the passage of a reproductive health law for more than a decade. The absence of comprehensive RH policy in the country has contributed to the increase in maternal and child mortality, abortion cases, and HIV & AIDS prevalence. Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended and about 4.5 for every 1000 of these end in illegal abortion clandestinely done in unsafe environments, with unskilled attendants; and approximately 800 of these women who go through abortions die. Philippine maternal mortality rate has also increased from 162 per 100,000 live births in 2009 to 221 per 100,000 births in 2011. There are now 6-8 new cases of HIV infection reported daily and the Philippines is one of the 7 countries that have not reversed the HIV infection trend.
Family planning should not be seen as a controversial nor even a political or religious issue but rather as a unifying factor for all who genuinely hope and work for the promotion of health and welfare of women and men around the globe. The realities of poor and marginalized, particularly the women, energize Melinda Gates’ sense of mission and drive her into action. We hope that there would be more people like her who use their resources and influence to expand women’s health and family planning programs and services.