An international conference on “Ethics of life with a Christian perspective” was held in Bratislava (Slovakia), in early October. Promoted by the episcopal conferences of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary as part of the Central European Katholikentag, the conference was preceded by a symposium organized for Slovak members of parliament on “The contemporary family, bioethics and the responsibility of the members of legislative organs”, in which Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Truijllo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, also intervened. He reminded MPs that “legislators have the duty to counter modern totalitarianism which, by force of parliamentary majority, compels citizens to act in violation of natural law”. The international conference was attended by over 200 pro-life activists from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Poland. At its end the participants signed the “Bratislava Declaration”, pressing for juridical curbs to be imposed on all forms of research that involve the killing of embryos.
