TOPIC: National Technology Policy Initiatives
MAIN ISSUE STATEMENT: Are you in favour of the legalization of Reproductive Health bill in the Philippines?
The Reproductive Health Bill, known as the RH Bill, are Philippine bills aiming to guarantee universal access to methods and information on contraception, fertility control, sexual education, and maternal care. The bills have become the center of a contentious national debate. There are presently two bills with the same goals: House Bill No. 4244 or An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and For Other Purposes introduced by Albay 1st district Representative Edcel Lagman, and Senate Bill No. 2378 or An Act Providing For a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population and Development introduced by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.
THESIS OR CONVICTION: Yes,
COUNTER ARGUMENT: No, because

SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS
1. No, because Philip Nitschke, MD, Director and Founder of Exit International, commented in his June 5, 2009 interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez titled "Euthanasia Sets Sail" that appeared in the National Review Online:
"Over time the Hippocratic Oath has been modified on a number of occasions as some of its tenets became less and less acceptable. References to women not studying medicine and doctors not breaking the skin have been deleted. The much-quoted reference to 'do no harm' is also in need of explanation. Does not doing harm mean that we should prolong a life that the patient sees as a painful burden? Surely, the 'harm' in this instance is done when we prolong the life, and 'doing no harm' means that we should help the patient die. Killing the patient--technically, yes. Is it a good thing--sometimes, yes. Is it consistent with good medical end-of-life care: absolutely yes."
2. No, because Sherwin Nuland, MD, wrote in his Feb. 24, 2010 article titled "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Practice," published in The New England Journal of Medicine:
"If the prevention and relief of suffering are the aims of medical interventions--and not only the preservation or prolongation of life--it seems imperative to rethink our profession's reluctance to participate in euthanasia or even be present during an assisted suicide without legal guarantees of protection.
Many opponents of these practices point to the Hippocratic Oath and its prohibition on hastening death. But those who turn to the oath in an effort to shape or legitimize their ethical viewpoints must realize that the statement has been embraced over approximately the past 200 years far more as a symbol of professional cohesion than for its content. Its pithy sentences cannot be used as all-encompassing maxims to avoid the personal responsibility inherent in the practice of medicine. Ultimately, a physician's conduct at the bedside is a matter of individual conscience.
The wisdom of past years and moments enters into the deliberation, but decision making in the present bears a burden that is unique to the particular transaction between the doctor and the individual patient who has come for help. To seek refuge in ancient aphorisms is to turn away from the unique needs of each of our patients who have entrusted themselves to our care."
3. No, because Martin Gold, JD, Counsel of Record, wrote in his Oct. 2009 Amicus Curiae brief "Bioethicists Supporting Respondents" inVacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg:
"The Hippocratic Oath can only be understood in its historical context. At the time of Hippocrates, there was no prohibition against physician-assisted suicide in mainstream Greek medicine; the practice was subject to consultation and informed consent similar in intent to the protocols urged by medical professionals and bioethicists today…
Adherents of the Hippocratic school of medicine were strongly influenced by Pythagoras. Not unlike contemporary adherents of natural cures for disease, he eschewed many then-mainstream, accepted medical practices. The original Greek version of the Oath, quoted by the Quill petitioners, required the followers of Hippocrates:
'to teach them this art--if they desire to learn it -- without fee and covenant;
[to] apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; not [to] give to a woman an abortive remedy not [to] use the knife'…
The text of the Hippocratic Oath has been modified many times through the ages. Contemporary versions, routinely adopted in medical-school graduation exercises and similar contexts…do not contain the prohibitions against surgery, abortion, or accepting fees for teaching medicine, and also omit the prohibition against physician-assisted suicide. In short, neither the Hippocratic Oath nor classical tradition provides a compelling ethical or professional prohibition of physician-assisted suicide."
4. No, Euthanasia is contrary to the dignity and preciousness of life Patrick Lee. "Personhood, Dignity, Suicide, and Euthanasia". The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly." Autumn 2011, Vol.1 No.3 - "[...]A thing (as opposed to a state or property) can be valuable in one of two ways (keeping in mind the above distinctions): First, it might be valuable as a vehicle or carrier of what is per se valuable. If human beings were valuable in that way, then they would not be per se valuable, but only the states or properties that they bore or carried would be of per se value. Or, secondly, a thing might be valuable because it is per se valuable, that is, it is valuable for its own sake, and not as a means toward what it enables to be instantiated. But, human beings must be valuable in the second way rather than in the first way. For if they were valuable only as mere vehicles for what is per se valuable, then it would always be morally right to kill one child, provided one agreed to replace him with two others. No human beings would have more than replaceable value. None would have the kind of value that almost all of us recognize that at least some human beings do have. So, human beings are intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable per se. This means that they themselves are valuable, not just as vehicles for what is valuable.
5. No, because the state does not force anyone to stay alive; it just doesn't euthanize. Euthanasia.com, an anti-euthanasia website. "Reasons for Euthanasia". Retrieved April 30th, 2008 - "3. Should people be forced to stay alive? No. And neither the law nor medical ethics requires that "everything be done" to keep a person alive. Insistence, against the patient's wishes, that death be postponed by every means available is contrary to law and practice. It would also be cruel and inhumane. There comes a time when continued attempts to cure are not compassionate, wise, or medically sound. That's where hospice, including in-home hospice care, can be of such help. That is the time when all efforts should be placed on making the patient's remaining time comfortable. Then, all interventions should be directed to alleviating pain and other symptoms as well as to the provision of emotional and spiritual support for both the patient and the patient's loved ones."