Philippine Supreme Court asked to lift TRO on Reproductive Health law

international | gender and sexuality | opinion/analysis Wednesday March 27, 2013 05:36 by AKBAYAN (Citizens Action Party)

Akbayan Partylist would like to express its extreme disappointment over the Supreme Court's decision to issue a status quo ante order against the Reproductive Health (RH) Law for a period of four months.

The decision is a deeply offensive move on the part of the high tribunal especially that the IRR of the law has just been signed and the public is enthusiastically expecting its implementation this Easter Sunday. The Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) is also extremely unnecessary as the high court could have taken cognizance of the petitions filed against the law without needlessly suspending the implementation of the law.

The RH law is an important policy tool of the government to ensure that a wide array of reproductive health services is accessible to millions of Filipino women. Even a day that passes without the law's implementation puts our women at unnecessary risk. Indeed, to delay the law's implementation is to deny millions of Filipino women their rights. The RH law delayed is women's rights denied.

However we are confident, even with the present challenge against the RH law that the Supreme Court will ultimately decide to uphold its validity. We are certain that upon the close scrutiny of the magistrates of the Supreme Court, the RH law will ultimately stand this test.

As such, we also call on the Filipino people especially our brave women to join us in this broad movement to defend the RH law. We cannot allow those who have virulently opposed the advancement of women's rights to undo the progress we have made in the past 14 years.

We were victorious in Congress. We will win this final battle in the Supreme Court.

https://akbayan.org.ph