ANTIPOLO City, Oct. 14, 2013—A higher incidence of abortion is not an indication that the practice should be legalized, a priest said.
Fr. Luke William Ong, AM shared his first-hand confirmation about the increasing incidence of abortion in the Philippines even among Catholics who also believe it was not the right thing to do in the first place.
“One week will not go by until I hear a person confessing to having had an abortion…That’s just Antipolo, what about the other churches?” said Fr. Luke William C. Ong, AM during his homily last Saturday at a mass celebrated for the Pious Disciple of Divine Master (PDDM) in Antipolo.
Fr. Ong, who administers the Sacrament of Reconciliation from Wednesday to Saturday every week at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, said the penitents cite different reasons for resorting to abortion like “not being ready for another child”; being afraid of the reaction of her and her boyfriend’s parents; or because having a child will adversely affect a romantic relationship.
“It is so saddening to think about this reality,” he added in Filipino.
Referring to the Gospel passage where a woman tells Jesus, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you’, Fr. Ong said times have indeed changed when people now see motherhood, not as a blessing, but as a burden.
“For a woman to bear a child, it is participating in creation, in the wonders of creation. Nowadays, being a mother is not considered a blessing,” he explained.
In an interview, he clarified that the prevalence of abortion is not an indicator that the time has come for its legalization, as the pro-choice camp asserts.
Just because a lot of people are doing it, he said, does not mean it should be decriminalized; in the same way, neither does the sheer number of people committing a certain sin somehow stops it from being a sin.
“Abortion is not the solution… the solution is to prevent being pregnant,” he said, referring specifically to the Natural Family Planning (NFP) method promoted by the Church for married couples.
The issue of following the teachings of the Church on life, Fr. Ong said, is a matter of wanting to do “what is right”.
He said, if this desire to do good is suppressed or ignored, then abortion becomes an option. (Nirva’ana Ella Delacruz)
