RH Law

I've never felt so passionate over something for so long. The feminist in me is crying and shouting in wild joy. Again, it's not about shoving principles down people's throats. It's always about choice.

Part of my conscious ultimatums prior to child bearing was the RH Law. My faith in humanity is partially restored; the branches of the government despite the plethora of errors in so many facets has done one right. That's still a good thing.

And to commemorate this win, I've decided this afternoon that the #RoadToPixie must go on. They say feminists cut their hair short as a political statement. Then let this be it...

Now, let's fight for more freedom. Let's all choose to be in the correct side of history (specially when left is right).

#SafeSex #RHLaw #NoGloveNoLove #ProChoice #ProGoodLife #ReproductiveHealth #NotReproductiveDeath #SeparationOfChurchAndState #TaxTheChurchIfTheyInterfereWithState

RH, again.

I am a woman who support RH. Reproductive health. I want a healthy uterus and cervix that will produce a smart and critical little Filipino. I don't want to die during childbirth because I want to be there to raise my child/children. I also want to enjoy intimacy with my husband without having to worry if doing so will mean we'll settle for less than our ideal lifestyle. I don't want to have lots of kids to take care of that I'll end up ignoring my husband and he'll start womanizing because I don't have time to spend with him. I want to have a choice as to how to live my life, conceive, rear and raise my family. We are practicing natural family planning because it works for us and I've been given proper education and have access to a doctor who gave us information on what would be safest for us since I already had a miscarriage. But I know some people don't have access to information or a doctor and I think that is unfair. I say give them access to information and contraception and see our country breed smarter, healthier and more aware citizens.

Three

I've been monitoring a lump in my left breast for roughly 4 years now. Every 6 months or so, I got get a breast ultrasound procedure to check changes and additional growths, if ever. I felt my first lump around 2008, it is in the 8 o'clock position of my left breast.

I had an ultrasound and mammogram last 23rd of October in the Medicard Lifestyle Center in Paseo de Roxas Makati after seeing my Facebook feed with THIS.

Anywho, I just got the results today because I am a lazy sloth when it comes to going out of the house.

The mammogram said that I had extremely dense breast parenchymae. That translates to my breasts are made up of useful tissues, glands and muscles and not useless fats, but it also mean that I have higher risk of breast cancer. Yes, apparently, non-saggy breasts = cancer risk. I can  look so pretty in dresses but I might be really rotting inside (forgive my morbid sense of humor, I'm not scared, I just find the irony in things hilarious).

There are now two lumps, another was found in the 9 o'clock position of my left breast. The mammogram did not spot this, the ultrasound did. The lumps are benign though, the ultrasound suggests.

Now let me lecture you about the BIRADS system. BI-RADS = breast imaging reporting and data system. The BIRADS system is rated from 0-6 and I was classified as tier 3 in it, and that means:

Category 3. Probably Benign

With BI-RADS category 3, a follow-up of 6 months is usually recommended. On the breast cancer screening mammogram there may be a finding of some kind, but the lesion is non-palpable. Findings typical of this category include:Clusters of tiny calcifications if round or oval Non-calcified solid nodules (no size limitation but non palpable), round, ovoid, well-defined,Selected focal asymmetric areas of fibroglandular density (not palpable): This might include concave-outward defined margins, interspersed with fat and without central increased fibular density on two projections.Miscellaneous focal findings, such as a dilated duct, or post biopsy architectural distortion without central densityGeneralized distribution in both breasts. For example, multiple similar lesions with tiny calcifications or nodules distributed randomly In some scenerios a percutaneous biopsy might be considered,even with category 3. For example, extreme patient anxiety, or plans for pregnancy, plans for breast augmentation or reduction surgery, or if synchronous carcinoma is present.

http://www.breast-cancer.ca/screening/bi-rads.htm   

So yeah, I'm in the midscale. One tier higher and the next will suggest suspicious finding, for biopsy, malignancy considered. Two tiers and it's cancer.

Some of you might send out prayers and messages of hope with this news, allow me to stop you from doing so. I am not scared of it. I am not dying. I am just aware.

It's good that I take precautionary check ups like this. It's weird to hear women my age who are surprised to know that I've been getting routine procedures for female health concerns since I was 21. I am glad I've been exposed to shit like this earlier than the rest, while this might scare the hell out of some people, I'm informed way earlier than them. Awareness and education makes me feel empowered. Visit an OB GYN or any medical practitioner (if you are feeling discomfort and/or having problems in other areas of your health) you can get your hands on.

I hope other women will do the same too. YES TO RH BILL.Women need to take care of their bodies.

Right on, Brangelina-style

I am Pro-RH because I am Pro-Life.

Maybe me and my husband will pull-off another Brangelina, they said they won't get married until Gay Marriage is legalized. Maybe we won't have babies until the RH bill is in place. Maybe.

We Practice Natural Family Planning. We're Married. We're Young Urban Professionals. We're Pro-RH.

I love the fact that it is women who have children who support RH. Something that anti-RH people will never understand is the risk mothers go through giving birth. I, who had a miscarriage, and did not have the child, experienced the verge of flat-lining while the doctors performed D&C.

Ask women who sacrificed their lives for the lives of their yet-to-be-born child. Ask husbands and fathers who were left by wives giving birth. Ask children who grew up without a mother, because she died giving birth to them or their siblings.

I hope people will choose the educated choice, not the merely self-righteous one.

For one, me and my husband are using the natural family planning method because we know how it works and it works for us. But there are women who have irregular cycles, making the natural method an unfit choice. I'm not gonna shove down their throats the method that we're using. It's about choice. About people being able to choose what is most convenient and what will work best for them. Forcing them to practice one method alone, when there are options defeats the purpose of DEMOCRACY.

People who use condoms or any artificial contraceptives ARE NOT PROMISCUOUS. They are SMART. They are the ones who are responsible enough to have foresight of what having a brood of children requires. Money to feed them, to clothe them, to put a roof above their heads and to send them to school.

Tell me that money isn't all that and I'll tell you to ask the Vatican to sell all their properties and use all that money to support all the families who cannot feed, clothe and educate their children because the natural methods failed, and they don't even earn enough have access to cheap artificial contraception, or aren't learned enough to know about artificial contraception because they weren't educated as well.

I don't even get this demonizing tactic and all the scapegoating. Sorry for the long-ass post, but I really have had enough of this debate. It shouldn't even be a debate after all. I hope people will start thinking and stop being a bunch of rigid, prude, virginal and self-righteous blind followers.

Overdue on RH*

I said I don’t want to blog politics anymore. But I feel like this one is inevitable. I am merely speaking as a woman, an educated woman who cares for her body and the future of her soon-to-be-family, who is aware of the dangers of giving birth and how mothers die giving birth when it could’ve been avoided to start with, the peril of sexually transmitted diseases spreading, the degrading economic conditions and how poverty is at all time high. Yes you might judge me for my agnosticism, or my past and current political affiliations for my biases, and that I am a rebel without a cause bratting my way into this debate

I am not as articulate as I used to, I realized; I have not read 60-page readings on the subject at hand to back me up. However, I cannot quite create a coherent wordplay to express my disdain on the Catholic Church for spoon-feeding, if not brainwashing their followers into a state of sublime naïveté on the matter. Again, I am not an expert; I will not debate and challenge friars, fanatics and pompous asses. This is just my two cents, free-flowing.

The Bible did not fall from the heaven, inscribed by lightning, landed on earth to be our sole guide in everything. If anything, it is a history book, a literary piece, a constitution of sorts if you will; and just like any constitution, it may be subject to amendments once it’s proven to be untimely. Jesus, is anything, is an icon, a revolutionary. I am not an atheist, though. I do believe in some form of Higher Power or Supreme Being. But the dogma of Catholicism is too much. Believe me, I studied in a “Catholic School” and was even dubbed Best in Christian Living. But if there’s one thing that I understood well in the Old Book, it is that human beings have freewill and I am merely practicing it. That has been my principle. Freedom. Tolerance. Freewill. I am free to to know, to understand, to analyze, to challenge theories and create my own ones if I found those existing to be insufficient and incapable of satisfying all my questions. The world, the society we live in, the technology we posses exists because of people who ask, who challenge and are not satisfied with what is just being handed to them. I feel the deepest of contempt to the blind followers.

Sure, the natural family planning method worked back circa 15 AD to 1940s, when the earth still needed inhabitants. But now, people are fighting for the most basic resources to survive. I think earth doesn’t need more inhabitants, I’m definite we’re nearing the threshold of earth’s capacity population-wise. The people are suffering because of this: low quality education, high poverty rate, rotten health care and social welfare programs, mass hunger. Awareness is the key to responsibility. If the Church continues to instill the idea of ‘sex is taboo’, people will never learn.

Sex is good, it is primal. The result of which is an infant (Juno, 2007). But if the parents cannot provide a good life to the kid, if the parents cannot even provide nourishment to the baby because they have seven more that they also need to feed, if the children resort to begging in the streets, if the mother will have to die giving birth because of lack of options, leaving the father raising a kid by himself, if the children will have to literally fight for a chance to quality education and health care. Wouldn’t it be nicer if the couple had an option firsthand on how they’ll go about with their sexual affairs and were clear with the size of the family that they want? As such all the needs will be provided to these children. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about family, and that it should provide the children the proper building blocks of life, values and principles for the next generation who will inherit our country and our world.

The RH Bill is not about legalizing abortion. It must be seen and understood in it’s complexity, how it has the capacity to solve the grassroots problem that escalates into the economic crisis we’re experiencing. It is about giving better options, to provide better life that will produce better people that will create a better country and a better world.

I’ve heard this on the news, unsure of the verbatim, but in essence: Catholics are not to be bound by the RH Bill.

My reply: Filipinos are not bound by Catholicism neither. We are all only bound by our own decisions based on freewill.

But then again, that’s just me. An opinion, not an absolute truth. After all, no one controls the monopoly of truth… or wisdom. Unless you're a tyrannical fascist with the worst case of Megalomania.


* I wrote this last October 4, 2010.

A Manifesto in Support of Choice | Filipino Freethinkers

A Manifesto in Support of Choice | Filipino Freethinkers

Because we SHOULD HAVE A CHOICE.

On Surveys

I'm a part of the Global Test Market Team. I love surveys. And I even love more the fact that the surveys I answer are part of research/studies. This one particular survey I'm answering right now, might be a deciding factor on the passage of the RH Bill into law. Stoked to do the survey. Join GTM if you're interested.

An Opinion (because there is NO Absolute Truth)

I said I don't want to blog politics anymore. But I feel like this one is inevitable. I am merely speaking as a woman, an educated woman who cares for her body and the future of her soon-to-be-family, who is aware of the dangers of giving birth and how mothers die giving birth when it could've been avoided to start with, the peril of sexually transmitted diseases spreading, the degrading economic conditions and how poverty is at all time high. Yes you might judge me for my agnosticism, or my past and current political affiliations for my biases, and that I am a rebel without a cause bratting my way into this debate.

I am not as articulate as I used to, I realized; I have not read 60-page readings on the subject at hand to back me up. However, I cannot quite create a coherent wordplay to express my disdain on the Catholic Church for spoon-feeding, if not brainwashing their followers into a state of sublime naïveté on the matter. Again, I am not an expert; I will not debate and challenge friars, fanatics and pompous asses. This is just my two cents, free-flowing.

The Bible did not fall from the heaven, inscribed by lightning, landed on earth to be our sole guide in everything. If anything, it is a history book, a literary piece, a constitution of sorts if you will; and just like any constitution, it may be subject to amendments once it's proven to be untimely. Jesus, is anything, is an icon, a revolutionary. I am not an atheist, though. I do believe in some form of Higher Power or Supreme Being. But the dogma of Catholicism is too much. Believe me, I studied in a "Catholic School" and was even dubbed Best in Christian Living. But if there's one thing that I understood well in the Old Book, it is that human beings have freewill and I am merely practicing it. That has been my principle. Freedom. Tolerance. Freewill. I am free to to know, to understand, to analyze, to challenge theories and create my own ones if I found those existing to be insufficient and incapable of satisfying all my questions. The world, the society we live in, the technology we posses exists because of people who ask, who challenge and are not satisfied with what is just being handed to them. I feel the deepest of contempt to the blind followers.

Sure, the natural family planning method worked back circa 15 AD to 1940s, when the earth still needed inhabitants. But now, people are fighting for the most basic resources to survive. I think earth doesn't need more inhabitants, I'm definite we're nearing the threshold of earth's capacity population-wise. The people are suffering because of this: low quality education, high poverty rate, rotten health care and social welfare programs, mass hunger. Awareness is the key to responsibility. If the Church continues to instill the idea of 'sex is taboo', people will never learn.

Sex is good, it is primal. The result of which is an infant (Juno, 2007). But if the parents cannot provide a good life to the kid, if the parents cannot even provide nourishment to the baby because they have seven more that they also need to feed, if the children resort to begging in the streets, if the mother will have to die giving birth because of lack of options, leaving the father raising a kid by himself, if the children will have to literally fight for a chance to quality education and health care. Wouldn't it be nicer if the couple had an option firsthand on how they'll go about with their sexual affairs and were clear with the size of the family that they want? As such all the needs will be provided to these children. I am all about family, it should provide the children the proper building blocks of life, values and principles for the next generation who will inherit our country and our world.

The RH Bill is not about legalizing abortion. It must be seen and understood in it's complexity, how it has the capacity to solve the grassroots problem that escalates into the economic crisis we're experiencing. It is about giving better options, to provide better life that will produce better people that will create a better country and a better world.

I've heard this on the news, unsure of the verbatim, but in essence: Catholics are not to be bound by the RH Bill. My reply: Filipinos are not bound by Catholicism neither. We are all only bound by our own decisions based on freewill.

My First Real Post Should Be Worthwhile

I signed the "Declaration of Support for the Immediate Passage of the Reproductive Health Bill" petition. Sign if you care about babies, women, families, hunger, poverty and the economy. Thanks!

Here's the link: Petition for the Immediate Passage of the Reproductive Health Bill into Law

Carlos Celdran couldn't have put it any better.