VATICAN - WORDS OF DOCTRINE: Defending the most helpless. Always.
Rev Nicola Bux and Rev Salvatore Vitiello
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On Monday 24 September 2007 an Italian Court issued a sentence allowing "pre-implant diagnosis" prohibited by Law 40/2004 on assisted procreation. The Court side stepped the law on the grounds of the existence of a constitutionally oriented interpretation of Law 40, and authorized the Hospital involved to carry out the diagnosis. The prompt response of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Italy, entrusted to Conference secretary Bishop Giuseppe Betori, was that the sentence appears clearly contrary both to Law 40 and to the Constitutional Court's own interpretation".
A few weeks ago world wide media attention was given to the news of a mistake made during a "therapeutic" abortion, on a mother pregnant with twins, who found afterwards that instead of her "unhealthy" child, (in this specific case affected by the Down syndrome), they killed her healthy one, with the successive consequent request to proceed to kill the second foetus. And for that mistake, we can be sure, considerable compensation will be demanded.
But who will compensate those killed? Worrying to say the least is a society which no longer feels the deep concern that this sought of news can and must cause in the minds of individuals and even more in the collective mind. How can a man who no longer respects the sacredness of live continue to respect himself and others?
Definitively "poor" is the person who denies God, plays God, obviously failing, and producing all around him monstrosities of violence and evil which only apparently and for a short time, remain hidden under a false veil of science, progress and humanity's "good". It is never right to do wrong to obtain something good, and certainly not when at stake is the supreme and intangible value of human life.
We should not be afraid to call these "experiences" by name: experiments in eugenics! Selection of human beings because of their state of health and who knows what other criteria will be used as they go ahead. It is astonishing that all those defenders of equality, human rights, respect and peace, do not rise up against these events indignantly. Probably the economic interests at stake compel to keep deafening silence even those most attentive and sensitive to human rights.
Abortion is not a right, because there cannot exist a right to kill and to kill the weakest and most helpless of all human beings, simply because he or she is so defenseless. The Church defends without hesitation, those who are most helpless. Always. In this case the most helpless are embryos selected because of the state of health and foetuses which are killed because they are not in good health. This is a matter of truth, conscience and God's judgment. The Lord of mercy is also the God of justice, who will ask each one of us to render account for our deeds.
What is at stake is also the future of humanity. A future where it is ever more dangerous to conceive powers which can decide what other people must be like, if and how long they should live and , above all, by what "criteria" this must be determined. What once appeared to be a subject of literary imagination, is becoming dramatically true. For the good of man, of humanity and the most helpless of human beings, this cannot be ignored. (Agenzia Fides 27/9/2007; righe 37: parole 525)
EUROPE - Family Policy Institute warns of demographic winter in Europe caused by abortion, fewer marriages and more divorces: new 2007 Report on the Evolution of the Family in Europe
Barcelona (Agenzia Fides) - Yesterday, 26 September, in Barcelona, Spain Lola Velarde, President of the European network of Family Policy Institutes (IPF), presented the 2007 Report on the Evolution of the Family in Europe. One year ago IPF presented its first such report to the European Parliament. Since then two more countries have joined the EU and some indicators such as family policy, changed. This is why this new updated report prepared by a multidisciplinary team of experts, highlights and analysis the more important family related indicators, starting with information supplied by various international bodies.
The report warns about Europe's "demographic winter", its marginal growth in the last twenty years, unequally distributed, with a clear drop in population in eastern European countries. In the Europe of 15 countries, population growth is due mainly to immigration with a rate of 80 per cent. The continent is expected to begin to fall in population numbers in 2025, and society is older, with more people over 65 than under 14.
One cause of a drop in the birth rate in Europe is the tragedy of abortion: every year 1.2 million unborn babies are not allowed to live: one abortion in every five pregnancies. Also to be considered the drop in the number of marriages, 22 per cent in 20 years, and people marry ever later, at an average age of 29. Another additional cause is the increase in divorces, one every 30 seconds, and almost 2 million babies born out of wedlock every year.
Lola Velarde said " in recent years problems facing families in Europe have become worse " and "Europe is losing the battle for the family", and she presented some answers offered by European institutions, IPF especially. Thanks to Germany EU presidency and with the help of the EU Ministry for the Family, awareness has grown especially in the Economic and Social Council (CEYS) which encourages the centrality of the family dimension in social and economic policies. However the European Commission has neither an office for family policies nor an Observatory nor a White Paper on the Family. Awareness is also unevenly distributed in some countries, some have a Family Ministry but in others family policies only come third. IPF, proposes indispensable social, economic, cultural measures to plant in Europe an authentic "family perspective". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 27/9/2007; righe 35, parole 494)
Links:
La 'Relazione sull'Evoluzione della Famiglia in Europa 2007', in spagnolo
http://www.ipfe.org/Informe_Evolucion_Familia_Europa_UE27_2007.pdf
--
"In Cordibus Jesu et Mariae"
