A recent news item reports that the UN, with heavy support from the current US government headed by Barack Obama, is adopting the resolutions of the 1995 UN women's conference in Beijing that gives women absolute right over their body.

It said that in that UN meeting, abortion was not anymore an issue. It was a foregone conclusion, a shoo-in, accepted by the majority of the members and not deserving any further discussion, thanks to the rousing speech of its main global proponent Hillary Clinton.

Women can now do anything with their body, a doctrine meant to be the basis for women's right to abortion, among many other things. The same thinking is behind the global promotion for reproductive health, safe sex, same-sex union, etc.

This is a great cause for concern, and even for alarm. That this perverted reasoning has gone up to the level of the UN indicates that not only human, but also some super-human or sub-human forces are at work. I don't think this is just a usual social or cultural phenomenon, a purely human affair. There are spirits behind this development.

We cannot remain passive in the face of this disturbing phenomenon. Here in our country, some prominent voices echo the same sentiments. They are public officials and even university presidents.

A senator now running for president openly batted for safe sex. In fact, many of our candidates mouth similar mantras. Many city councils today are enacting reproductive health decrees, obviously riding on a bandwagon, following a global pied piper that dangles a lot of money and support.

But how else can we explain the irrationality of their position when it can open the floodgates to everyone claiming absolute rights not only for their body, but also for anything they like? If the women now can do anything with their body, who can stop the men also to do the same, the adolescents, the children, the different groups also to do the same?

It's true that we all are free, and because of that we are subjects of our own actions, conscious of them and responsible for them too. That's the reason we have subjectivity. That's because we think, we choose, decide, love or reject, orient our actions to some goal, etc. In short, we are responsible for our actions.

But that subjectivity, by the very nature of our being persons who think and are free and responsible, necessarily leads us to be connected with others, let alone, with God who is supposed to be our Creator, the Author of everything, of what is right and wrong, what is good and evil.

Our subjectivity can't help but enter into the dynamics of inter-subjectivity. Our life is always a life of sharing, of inter-personal relation. No one, no group can claim to live by himself or by themselves. No one, no group can be absolute authors of the laws to govern us. No one, no group can be a law to himself or themselves.

You do that and you immediately get into trouble. You will lapse into the world of subjectivism, a parody of our subjectivity. You will simply be tossed to and fro in an ocean of relativism where without absolute guide your survival will just be a matter of brute force and violence and other forms of inhuman and unfair justice.

Our individuality is not meant to freeze into individualism and isolationism. A recluse, unless he is one due to ascetical reasons, and an asocial or anti-social person are always an anomaly.

And this is what the UN seems to be promoting now. It seems it has not learned its lesson after it has burned its fingers with its rash support of the global warming issue, now largely discredited by scientists worldwide. It's declaring women to be a law to themselves, detached from an absolute standard.

We cannot remain passive here. This development is a call to action. We have to understand that our life will always be some kind of warfare, not only in the personal level involving internal and spiritual situations, but also in the global level.

For Christian believers, this battle will always be a war of peace and love, of truth, justice and charity. But just the same, the unavoidable aspects of warfare will always be there-the cut and thrust, the discussion and arguments, the effort to clarify and win followers through their heart and mind, dialogue, patience, understanding, mercy, etc. We have to be ready for all these.

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Fr. Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Talamban, Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com