THE Supreme Court has been urged to make more meaningful the celebration of the National Women’s Month this March by lifting its temporary restraining order on the use of contraceptive drugs and devices.
“Last March 8, we celebrated the International Women’s Day while the whole month itself is celebrated to honor women. It would have been a most opportune time for the SC to lift that revulsive TRO that, in this day and age, makes a mockery of our democratic ideals,” said Louis Biraogo, the lead convener of the group Tayo.
He lamented the TRO had deprived Filipino women of their freedom to decide when to have children and what contraceptive methods to use.
“The few nameless and faceless people behind the petition in whose behalf the SC issued the TRO have appropriated to themselves the power to choose for the 28 million Filipino women who are of reproductive age,” said Biraogo.
Tayo has been urging the SC to lift the TRO on the grounds that “pro-birth groups have miserably failed to prove why these contraceptives should not be used by the public.”
Biraogo said Filipinos must be told the truth that the contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration are “proven safe and effective, and supported by real scientific evidence.”
“These contraceptives follow the strict guidelines of the World Health Organization. They work by preventing ovulation and/or fertilization, not by preventing “implantation” of a fertilized ovum,” said the Tayo organizer.
He slammed those opposed to contraceptives and the implementation by the government of the Reproductive Health Law for misusing scientific studies to cast blanket guilt and disrepute upon all contraceptives.”