Appeal to Pope: Allow condom use for couples

MANILA, Philippines—Iloilo Representative Janette Garin said the statement of Pope Benedict XVI on condom use was laudible, but wanting.

Why is condom use acceptable among male prostitutes and not among couples who need it as much, asked Garin, a medical doctor and author of one of the reproductive health bills pending in the House of Representatives.

"It's good that the Vatican is now trying to open its door but it's quite ironic for them to allow condom use only for male prostitutes," she said.

"We pity couples with HIV and partners whom they continuously deprive of the right to copulate as husband and wife," she added. "More detrimental are the children born to HIV-positive parents."

Garin appealed to the Pope to support the advocacy for a better quality of life, "by allowing governments to improve their social capital and by giving every couple the right to plan their family."

"If condoms are for male prostitutes, is it highly immoral to deprive married couples with this? We believe in the sanctity of marriage and family, the basic unit of our society. They should be prioritized more than prostitution," she said.

In his upcoming book, the Pope had said that for some people, such as male prostitutes, using condom could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.”

The Vatican’s ban on contraception remains, but Alberto Melloni, an Italian church historian, said Benedict “opened without a doubt a crack that cannot help but have consequences,” according to an Associated Press report.

Benedict has waded into an issue where no Pope has gone since Paul VI’s famous 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae” barred Catholics from using condoms and other artificial contraception.

Pressure to lift that ban has grown with the spread of the HIV virus, which has infected some 60 million people worldwide and led to 25 million AIDS-related deaths over three decades.