In 1995, Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, promoted birth control by actualizing a national family planning program as part of his agenda to decrease population growth and therefore poverty. The program involved universal access to reproductive healthcare and sex education in schools. Proponents reasoned that the program would lead to decreased maternal mortality rates and empower women, especially rural women who would gain the ability to make choices about their reproductive health.

The entire plan placed Fujimori and the government in direct opposition to the Catholic Church, which plays a major role in Peruvian society. At the time, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, one of the top 10 most powerful people in Peru, replaced the Ministry of Health’s sex education material with that of his own that was based on abstinence and sexual morality. To this day, the Catholic Church considers contraception immoral because the Pope says that it disrupts the natural reproductive process. Nevertheless, Fujimori powered through with the support of the media, the international community and the public.

We’re now seeing a similar phenomenon happen in the Philippines where there is currently intense debate over the Reproductive Health bills (“RH bill”) that has many of the exact same provisions as those of Fujimori’s program in 1995. This time, the Catholic Church is sure that promoting birth control, or what they refer to as “abortion-inducing drugs,” will increase rates of abortion, which is illegal there.

In countries where the Catholic Church plays an important role, should the Church also have a say in reproductive health and sex education? Should everyone in the world have equal access to birth control? Why or why not?