Yet, extremist conservatives especially those identified with the Roman Catholic Church insist that the term reproductive health in "its international context" implicitly includes the right of women to have abortions on demand. This thinking takes root from the fact that at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, pro-abortion activists promoted the inclusion of "safe abortion" among the reproductive health services regarded as essential to the health and well-being of women.

The opponents of reproductive health rights choose to ignore the fact that strong objections were raised against this notion not only by the anti-abortionists but also by some population control activists and even a few feminists – including some from the Philippine delegation. The fact is that the language of the final declaration of Cairo was watered down to "encouraging countries, where abortion is legal, to ensure the availability of safe abortions for women in need of such services".

Nevertheless most anti-RH campaigners continue to assert that legalized abortion is the "true intention" of those who sponsored and support the proposed House Bill 5043 often referred to as the Reproductive Health Bill (the RH bill for short). They overlook the fact that the bill repeatedly affirms that, in this country, abortion continues to be illegal and that there is no intention of legalizing it. They choose to ignore this in spite of the fact that the bill’s principal sponsor has in the past stood solidly side by side with the Catholic Church on a number of "pro-life" issues such as the abolition of the death penalty.

More worrisome than the notion of imputing legal abortion where it is neither included in the bill nor intended by the vast majority of pro-RH supporters, is the extremist insistence on their definition of abortion in order to buttress their "legal or constitutional" arguments against the bill.

By the definition of the most rabid RH oppositionists, all methods of preventing unwanted pregnancies except for the so-called natural method involving periodic abstinence or better still complete abstinence are by definition abortifacients and therefore their use is illegal.

Contrary to the currently held position by the vast majority of scientifically grounded professions (including most obstetrician-gynecologists), anti-reproduction fundamentalists do not agree with the definition of abortion as the premature termination of an established pregnancy. Members of the Catholic hierarchy, without any scientific basis, assert that human life begins at fertilization, thus implying that preventing implantation constitutes their version of abortion.

But fertilization is a long process during which there is a long period where absolutely no human life can possibly be involved. The fact is that fertilization begins with the penetration of the penis into the vagina during sexual intercourse. Certainly life for a potential human does not start when sperm is ejaculated into a woman’s reproductive tract. Nor does it start during the long journey of the sperm cells up the female reproductive tract where one of them will eventually meet an ovum. Once a spermatozoon touches the outer covering of the egg cell, a second penetration occurs as the head of the sperm pierces the membrane and releases its chromosomes into the cell plasm to fuse with the female genetic material.

True anti-abortionists would say that interruption of this process at any point constitutes frustration of the reproductive (since the Cairo conference, they actually prefer the term procreative) process and is therefore abortion. This line of reasoning never fails to amaze family planning advocates who wonder how on earth condoms can be considered abortifacients.

The truth is that Catholic conservatives also object to other facets of the concept of reproductive health and sexual rights. The WHO statement on the subject includes the assertion that "reproductive health … implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life." The notion that individuals can aspire for a satisfying sex life without risk of pregnancy or without intending procreation drives puritanical extremists to distraction.

It is for this reason that these fundamentalists object vehemently to sex education in public schools. Their claim is that it is the parents’ sole right to teach sexuality to their own children. Teachers employed by government, according to these extreme believers, cannot possibly acquire the skills to teach reproductive health and values. They gloss over the fact that in many elite Catholic schools, supposedly celibate men and women with little or no reproductive experience provide sex education and guidance for thousands of young men and women.

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Anti-RH extremists also ignore the fact that the present health system which does not provide free services to the poor in effect deprives them of these services. This is because the main mode of payment for services is through out-of-pocket payments.

This mode of health care financing has dire consequences for individuals, families and communities with little or no disposable incomes. Only those with money can fully afford out-of-pocket payments – and often they are also covered by generous insurance benefits. The poor, most of whom do not even have pockets, are totally dependent on government services or private charity. The middle classes and near-poor are always at risk of impoverishment when they need health services particularly those requiring expensive interventions.