Philippines bishops and people resist attacks on pro-life culture and laws Derby, - Pro-life activists in the Philippines, including the Catholic bishops, are resisting attacks on the country's pro-life culture and constitution from overseas agencies including the Obama administration.

This message was today conveyed to the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children's annual conference by Mr Francisco Tatad, former leader of the Philippines senate, and Mrs Fenny Tatad, executive director of the Bishops-Legislators Caucus of the Philippines.

Mr Tatad told the conference that the Filipino people's faith in the sanctity of life was being daily tested by assaults from the media and pressure groups.

Abortion nevertheless remained banned in that country.

State-run contraception and sterilisation were the first steps on the road to legalised abortion.

Families were getting smaller. Legislators were promoting a reproductive health bill which contained policies which were against Filipino culture and constitution.

The bill fell short of legalising abortion but contained much that was unethical.

It would empower the state to prevent women from conceiving.

Mr Tatad described the proposed measure as Orwellian; politicians should have blocked it from the start yet it was being debated.

Scholars at a Jesuit university in the Philippines had said that Catholics could support it; Catholic academics overseas had rebuked them.

Mrs Tatad said that the media had not been neutral on the bill but its opponents had used blogs to spread their message.

Parliamentary debate had been tumultuous and the Catholic bishops had also intervened to stop anti-life language from being inserted in a different bill on women. Anti-life activists had also tried to bring language on reproductive health into a bill on agriculture.

While the Philippines had a bloated reproductive health budget, there was insufficient money for basic healthcare and sanitation.

Mrs Tatad said that some local councils had adopted reproductive health programmes and formed alliances with overseas organisations and governments.

Mr Tatad added that President Obama's over-riding of the ban on the use of US money for abortion overseas was a threat to the Philippines.

UN bodies were also applying pressure to the nation to legalise abortion.

There was a risk of the election of a morally indifferent president in the Philippines.

The UN had to be made to focus once more on its original mandate of promoting peaceful cooperation between nations, instead of intervening in the intimate affairs of families.

It needed to have an international convention which would stop states and agencies from promoting birth control and abortion; instead, the UN should promote the sanctity of human life.

The pro-life struggle was God's battle first, not ours, and God did not routinely lose battles.