Spain: a referendum on abortionA referendum on the bill of law on abortion in Spain. This is asked for by the spokesperson of “Right to Live” (Derecho a Vivir, Dav), Gádor Joya, to the Government. Dav will join Concapa in demanding a democratic consultation on “a bill of law that affects the fundamental right to life and cannot be legitimised by a scanty majority of 26 votes, when in addition the MPs are divided on the issue”, said Joya. Right to Live “will ask for a referendum to be held on the pro-abortion bill of law launched by the Government, and if needed it will hold a new rally”, after the pro-life rally of October 17th which gathered over one million people in Madrid. Right now, it will deliver one million signatures asking for such referendum. According to Dav’s spokesperson, “the existing and relevant right to life disappears in the bill of law, while the Psoe made up a non-existent right, the right to abortion”. Joya congratulates instead those MPs that have called “this law unfair”. “The cause of human rights must be promoted every day – DAV’s spokesperson stated -. Nowadays, freedom is a commitment to those who do not have it, it is not an invention of selfish rights to which this Government means to reduce it”.Portugal: same-sex marriage, “grave consequences”The Council of Ministers of the Portuguese State has drafted a bill that would legalize civil marriages between same-sex couples. It is due to be presented in Parliament by the end of December, and expected to be discussed and approved in January 2010, counting as it does on the support of the Socialist and Communist Parties and that of the Bloco de Esquerda. At a press conference, Portuguese Minister Pedro Silva Pereira said that the “intention was to put an end to a form of social discrimination” and that “the government possesses the democratic legitimacy to legislate on an issue it considers sufficiently debated”, also excluding the hypothesis of a consultative referendum. “The possibility of adoption however is not included in the bill, since it is not part of the government’s programme”. Any such possibility, however, “ought to satisfy not the rights of the adopters, but the interests of the child”, said the government representative. Commenting on the government’s decision, the spokesman of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference, Father Manuel Morujão declared that: “We find ourselves faced here by a kind of ideological engineering through which an attempt is made to re-invent an immemorial structure which, though it can undoubtedly be improved and brought up to date, must absolutely maintain the structural identity it has always had”. “The government’s decision will have grave consequences, because the basic structure of the family is in this way subverted by the promotion of a form of marriage that is not authentic and that, with all due respect, only regards a minority of persons”, added the spokesman of the Portuguese episcopate: “The bill therefore represents a dangerous alteration of the anthropological foundations of the family and, together with it, of society as a whole”. Lastly, disclaiming any wish to put the government’s intentions on trial, Father Morujão wished to recall that: “There are other social problems and challenges that would currently merit the government’s priority attention, such as unemployment, job insecurity, and the growing indebtedness and economic difficulties that Portuguese families are having to cope with today”.Austria: “consternation” for the day-after pillThe Austrian Catholic Church has reacted negatively to the government’s decision on 17 December to permit girls to take the day-after pill even without medical prescription. “Great consternation” was expressed on 18 December by Bishop Klaus Küng of St Pölten, chairman of the Commission for the Family of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference. Mgr. Küng, who was trained as a doctor, stressed that the pill “represents a massive intervention in women’s hormonal balance, and there is also a risk that, due to the ease with which it can be obtained, it could be thoughtlessly used by young girls as a regular contraceptive”. He also deplored the fact that the distribution of the day-after pill without any medical prescription was granted “in spite of the clear opposition of the Order of Medical Practitioners”. The bishop also made an appeal to all pharmacists and general practitioners, to act “with responsibility” and give “particularly detailed information on how the drug should be taken”. A negative opinion was also expressed by the pro-life association Aktion Leben: “We are dismayed by the fact that the policy for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies could think of nothing better than to authorize the distribution of the day-after pill without prescription”, said Martina Kronthaler, general secretary of the association. “Simply ignoring the warnings of the Austrian Order of Medical Practitioners against distributing the pill without prescription is irresponsible in its attitude to women”, she added. “With the pill’s distribution without prescription, an image is transmitted of a mechanized world that offers no guidance to young people on how to experience sexuality in a loving relationship”. So, the liberalization of the day-after pill represents an “inadequate response to the shortcomings of sex education at school and the task of raising the awareness of young people”, concluded Kronthaler.
