The Freedom to Choose: Reflections on Faith, Population, and Responsible Parenthood

 

The Freedom to Choose:
Reflections on Faith, Population, and Responsible Parenthood
By Benito L. Mabeza, CPA

Editor’s Note: I am republishing this piece which I originally wrote in 2011. At the time, the global human population had just breached 7 billion, and the highly polarizing Reproductive Health (RH) Bill was being fiercely debated in the Philippine Congress. Looking back, the core questions of choice, conscience, and stewardship remain as vital today as they were then.

I was living in Vietnam as an expatriate in 2011, tethered to home through online Philippine newspapers and evening news broadcasts. Two major headlines dominated my mind, mapping out a profound collision between global reality and national policy:

1. The Reproductive Health Bill Debate: A deeply polarizing issue dividing Philippine society, pushing the government and the Catholic Church into opposing corners.
2. 7 Billion Humans: News broke that the earth’s population had officially crossed the seven-billion mark.

Seven billion is easy to write, but staggering to imagine. That is seven billion hopes, dreams, and mouths to feed. Nearly 95 million of those individuals were Filipinos—living in a country where poverty remains a daily battle, classrooms are chronically overcrowded, and basic necessities are luxuries for millions.

Behind every statistic is a human story. Watching these events unfold from afar, I found myself asking heavy questions: Where are we going? How many people can this planet sustain? And does the biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply" mean we should keep multiplying regardless of the circumstances?

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The RH Bill: A Question of Choice

The Reproductive Health Bill touched the most intimate corners of human existence: how we create life, how we plan families, and who holds the right to decide.

• The Proponents: Argued that reproductive health education and access to family planning empower poor families to make informed choices. They believed couples should have access to both natural and modern methods based on their unique circumstances and beliefs.
• The Opponents: Led by the Catholic Church, they maintained that artificial contraception violates the natural moral order and threatens the sanctity of human life.

These are not trivial arguments; they involve deep questions of faith and human dignity.

But caught in the middle of this ideological crossfire was the ordinary Filipino couple. A husband and a wife already struggling to feed three children in a cramped home without running water, stretching a few hundred pesos across the week, with another baby on the way.

Who gets to decide what that family can responsibly undertake?

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Agency, Eden, and the Gift of Free Will

I have never been afraid to question. In college, I quietly explored various religious and philosophical perspectives in search of truth rather than dogma.

I distinctly remember a Bible study focused on the Garden of Eden. When the preacher asked for my thoughts on Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, I gave an answer that probably made him regret inviting me:

"Shouldn't we be grateful to the serpent? If not for that temptation, perhaps we would still be in the Garden of Eden—all naked! Here we are today, clothed, thinking, questioning, and with the freedom to choose between good and evil. Is God really selfish for restricting us from knowledge?"

The preacher responded that it was all predetermined in God’s plan. I disagreed. If everything is written and predetermined, what meaning does choice actually have?

God gave us the freedom to choose. But freedom is never a blank check. Freedom carries responsibility—and that responsibility is the absolute heart of parenthood.

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Redefining "Be Fruitful and Multiply"

The biblical command to multiply was given when the earth was vast, populations were tiny, and resources seemed limitless.

Today, we live in a fundamentally altered world. Seven billion people share a choking planet. Forests are vanishing, oceans are depleted, and cities are paralyzed by congestion.

Perhaps "be fruitful and multiply" should no longer be interpreted as a mandate for unchecked growth. Perhaps, in the 21st century, it is a call to be responsible stewards of the life and world we have been given.

The Limits of Natural Family Planning

As a practicing Catholic, I understand and respect the Church's teaching on Natural Family Planning (NFP). There is beautiful wisdom in understanding the natural rhythms of the human body.

But is it realistic to demand that every couple rely solely on this method, regardless of their realities? NFP requires rigorous discipline, perfect communication, and flawless cooperation. Humans are emotional, passionate, and imperfect. We are not machines.

Furthermore, is sex in marriage exclusively about making babies? No. Sex is also intimacy, tenderness, companionship, and a profound, wordless expression of love. If God created human sexuality purely for reproduction, why build into it such immense capacity for pleasure and bonding?

The Church must continue to guide and form consciences. But ultimately, it must respect the ultimate agency of the parents. They are the ones who must buy the food, pay the school fees, and stay awake through the night with a sick child.

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Prevention vs. Termination

To clarify my own convictions: I believe life begins at conception. Therefore, a human life deserves absolute protection from its very origin.

However, we must distinguish between preventing conception and terminating an existing pregnancy. Preventing a pregnancy through contraception is fundamentally different from abortion. For me, that distinction is non-negotiable.

If we truly believe life is precious, our care cannot end at birth. It is not enough to simply insist, "Have the child." We must collectively ask, "Who will care for the child?"

Children are spectacular blessings. But bringing a child into this world requires more than the physiological ability to conceive—it requires the sustained capacity to parent.

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What Do We Owe Our Children?

Imagine reporting back to the Creator: "Lord, we followed Your command. We multiplied until there were seven billion of us."

If God asks, "And what did you do with the world I gave you?"—what will our reply be? Did we multiply poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, and human misery?

This entire debate shouldn't be a turf war between Church and State. The real question is: What kind of world are we preparing for our children?

If we love them, we must care about the quality of the world they inherit. We owe them clean air, safe water, quality education, dignity, and a future.

Final Thoughts

Responsible parenthood is not about enforcing childlessness, nor is it about irresponsible multiplication. It is about recognizing that the greatest gift we can give our children is not simply life, but a life worth living.

The command to multiply must be paired with an equally sacred command: Be wise. Be responsible. Be good stewards. Freedom without responsibility is just recklessness.

God gave us the freedom to choose. Now, it is our duty to choose wisely.

Until then, my humble regards.

RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD

Responsible Parenthood

1 November 2011, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Hello my dear Readers.  Whew! I have been busy attending to certain client’s engagements in the past few months; hence unable to write new articles to upload in my blog page.  Though, I still had time to read Philippines’ newspapers online, watch news on TV at nights and keep me up abreast of the latest events. Also, I have been monitoring the development on the “Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill)” currently being debated in the Philippine’s congress, which is faced by opposing opinions across the various sectors, the Pros and Cons.

Yesterday, my attention was caught by this demographic milestone that our Mother Earth’s population has reached the 7 Billion mark! The thought of seven billion people inhabiting the planet boggles the mind, particularly when one considers that the Philippines, where joblessness and poverty are the norm in a vast swath of the population, contributes as much as 94.9 million to the figure.

Based on my internet research on the countries ranking in the top 10 in terms of both total population (more than 15 million people) and population density (more than 250 people per square kilometre), I found out that Philippines ranked number 4  with nearly 95 million, at 313  people per square kilometre, and is rated as a fast growing country.

Is this good or bad? Will the “Reproductive Health Bill” be the answer?  This RH Bill is a very hot issue of today which involves two powerful institutions, our Government and the Catholic Church.

The Government is pushing the RH Bill for the sake of helping less-fortunate segment of our society. The Pros says that the reproductive health (RH) bill promotes information on and access to both natural and modern family planning methods, which are medically safe and legally permissible. It assures an enabling environment where women and couples have the freedom of informed choice on the mode of family planning they want to adopt based on their needs, personal convictions and religious beliefs.

The RH Bill will let couple (husband and wife) choose the perfect family planning method, whether artificial or natural birth control. On the other hand, the Catholic Church and related Associations are firmed with their stand about this issue, “No to RH Bill”. They condemned the artificial method because they believe that some of the listed contraceptives on the RH Bill are immoral which are more likely as an abortion.

As a concerned Filipino citizen, I would like to share my thoughts on this issue too, which I understand delicate and may not be like by some, particularly the Catholic Church, where I still belong.  In doing so, please note that I have considered certain views I have gathered during my research and my previous religious activities I participated in. 

The Freedom to Choose

When I was still in college, in search of truth and without my parents knowing it, I explored other religious denominations, i.e., Atheists, Muslim and other Christian sects. I did attend some religious doctrination and Bible studies too.

In one of those Bible studies, we read in the Book of Genesis, about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the tree of knowledge, a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. God directly forbade Adam (Eve having not yet been created) to eat the fruit of this tree. A serpent tempted Eve, who was aware of the prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. The serpent had suggested to Eve that eating the fruit would bestow wisdom upon them. Eve and then Adam ate the forbidden fruit, and they became aware of their nakedness. After confronting their disobedience, God banished the couple from the garden in order to deny them access to the Tree of Life, which would have bestowed immortality onto them. God cursed both the snake and the ground, obliging Adam to survive through agriculture "by the sweat of his brow." He told the woman that her childbirth pains would be greatly increased and that the man would rule over her. God set guards (Cherubim) at the east side of the garden to protect the way to the tree of life from Adam, Eve, and their descendants.

The Preacher asked me to share my thoughts on the passage we have read. Then I said: “Shouldn’t we be grateful to the Serpent, had not of the suggestion, maybe we are still in the Garden of Eden, all naked! Here we are, well dressed and have freedom to choose -- which is good or bad for us. Is God really selfish to restrict us to know what is good and evil?”

The Preacher replied, “We’ll it is written and thus came to pass -- destined as God’s Plan, where I objected, saying, “If that the case, then Life would be meaningless, if all scripted and destiny.” Nonetheless, I believe and still maintain as of today that it is God’s will that we should have the freedom to choose.

Those who are opposing the RH Bill refer to the "Go forth and multiply" credo of the Catholic Church, which is a passage in the Bible and I quote: “And God blessed them; and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

The Credo served it well in centuries past when the earth's population was small and all manner of resources were in abundance. Today, the entire planet is in peril, and the Philippines in particular is rapidly slipping into the status of a third-world state. Most of its urban poor live in shanties that have no running water or toilets.

I understand that Natural family planning (NFP) methods are the only approved by the Catholic Church. In accordance with the Church's requirements for sexual behaviour in keeping with its philosophy of the dignity of the human person, natural family planning methods exclude the use of other methods of birth control.

Periodic abstinence and the natural infertility caused by breastfeeding are the only methods deemed moral by the Church for avoiding pregnancy. When used to avoid pregnancy, NFP limits sexual intercourse to naturally infertile periods; portions of the menstrual cycle, during pregnancy, and after menopause. Various methods may be used to identify whether a woman is likely to be fertile; this information may be used in attempts to either avoid or achieve pregnancy.

The central argument in the basic Church doctrine against the use of contraceptives is that the Church has a privileged knowledge of natural law, and that the use of contraceptives violates this law since it prevents sex from undertaking its “natural function” of procreation.

However, the above methods have the highest failure rates.  Furthermore, I think Sex is not only meant for procreation but for the couple to enjoy the most of it within the bounds of marriage. We should be thankful that the God in his kindness designed Sex to feel good, but the natural law should be complied with, apparently.

As for me, I would prefer that the Church leaves it to the couples to decide on the method to use.  The Church with their clergies or priests don’t have experience and may not be in the position to advise, particularly what do in the bedroom on the first place. Can they really control the couple when the wife on her fertile days not to have sex with the husband? I don’t think so.  Needless to say, few of them (clergies or priests) can’t even control their own sexual urges; see those reported cases of sexual advances committed by priests or those who cohabit with mistresses and had sex against their own teaching.

I do believe that Life begins at conception, not birth. Hence, as long as the contraception methods used are not abortifacient then I guess they’re alright.  No conception no abortion.

I agree and to be sure, children occupy the highest rung of delight on the family scale, particularly in our country where the birth of a child is generally welcomed for a variety of reasons—as a blessing from the divine, an affirmation of the couple’s ability to reproduce (especially, in these sexist parts, the man’s virility), a guarantee of the clan’s continuity, and, in the lower-income strata, a promise of another pair of hands to help in the livelihood.

However, we should be all diligent to consider if we have to keep multiplying beyond our means.  Just take a look at the scarcity of resources: not enough classrooms, not enough agricultural produce, dwindling seafood sources, continuous destruction and unabated rape of our natural resources, increasing ignorance of people, imbalance in the sharing between human and animal habitat, dwindling supply of water to drink, disappearing agricultural lands, and many more.

Unfortunately, man cannot report back to God now: “Umm, Lord, we enjoyed multiplying so much that we are seven billion now, and we are just multiplying the poor and human misery. Can we at least slow down this multiplying now?”

For those who say that it is OK to continue to multiply, I could say they sure don't have their feet on the ground. If we want our children to inherit a better century than our own, we owe it to our own children to help restore worldwide respect for the intrinsic dignity and incomparable worth of the human person.  We must affirm the founding truth our civilization: that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God.

I believe God would not be happy to see mankind suffering due to overpopulation.

Until then my humble regards. 

BLMabeza is a concerned citizen.