The map of life

November 1st, solemnity of All Saints, is the deadline for the signature-collection launched in support of the One of Us campaign in Europe. The European citizens’ initiative is a new tool of participatory democracy enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty. The decision to resort to this tool is the result of the awareness of a “democratic deficit” in the EU. The democratic legitimacy of European institutions and its “bureaucracy”, as underlined by the Court of Karlsruhe, are weak, which explains the commitment to step up the EU system with the tool of direct democracy. November 2 marks the Commemoration of all deceased faithful and European policymakers may be surprised, as one of the first citizens’ initiative relates to the right to life of the newborn child, fundamental in democratic terms. In fact, democracy is based on the recognition of the dignity of every human being and vulnerable persons cannot be excluded from the community. Almost 1.5 million citizens of the European Union signed the petition “One of Us”, asking the European Commission to put an end to the funding of activities entailing the destruction of human embryos, especially in the field of research, development and public health. This could occur through a change in the financial regulation of the European Union, which determines the spending capacity of the EU. In the light of researches of alternative cells by Shinya Yamanaka, 2012 Nobel laureate in Medicine, experiments on human embryo stem cells, fail to provide valuable results even from a merely pragmatic angle, and therefore are meaningless. It should not be forgotten that the promotion of abortion in the world, along with financial support to the practice of abortion with taxpayers’ money, does not lie in the field of EU competence. To this regard it’s unacceptable that the two main global suppliers of services for abortion, i.e., Marie-Stopes-International and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), received respectively from the European Commission 3.739.701 euro and 572.535 euro of direct funding – considering last year’s figures alone. As regards the pro-life initiative, an analysis of the activity carried out by the organizers of One of Us campaign shows that its foremost achievement to date is to have prompted the European Commission’s formal pledge to address the issue and hold a public hearing on the theme, after which a legislative initiative is expected, compliant with the request of European citizens. Organizers have managed to create a cooperation network involving pro-life movements across Europe. This cooperation is ecumenical, as it brings together Catholics, Protestant and Orthodox faithful, and in some Countries also Muslims, as well as organizations that are not affiliated to a religion. To date, the initiative reached the minimum requested amounts of adhesions in 15 EU countries, while over seven exceeded 50% of the minimum threshold. It’s the new landscape of united Europe, a pro-life Europe. It also shows that divisions on the protection and the dignity of every human are not between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Europe. Leading countries in terms of signature-collections are Italy, Poland, Germany, Romania, France, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, The Netherlands, Portugal, Malta, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Croatia. In the past days the European Parliament discussed a Report (Estrela Report) drawn up by Vicky Claeys who governs IPPF European regional network. MEP Michael Cashman (UK, SOC), leader of the LGBT caucus and pro-abortion activist, publicly recognized his intention to fight a “Blitzkrieg” against the right to life, orchestrated by EU funded pro-abortion NGOs (UNFPA, IPPF, Marie-Stopes-International, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung). On 22 October, the day marking the commemoration of Blessed John Paul II, MEPs voted to refer back the Estrela Report for further committee work, but the Report is tabled for plenary debate in a few months. What will be the European Commission’s stand in the dispute on the dignity of all human beings and the future of democracy in Europe? The European Union, as previously mentioned, clearly suffers a democratic deficit. The Estrela Report signals the extent of the divide separating policymakers and European societies. The forthcoming elections for the European Parliament will undoubtedly provide a major opportunity to bridge this gap.