In defence of life” “” “

The question of the protection of life is a burning issue throughout Europe, also in Austria, where Pro-Life Day was celebrated on 1st June. Abortion, biotechnologies and euthanasia: these are practices that threaten human existence of its most vulnerable moments – at the beginning and at the end of life – and that are being strenuously opposed by the Austrian Catholic Church, also in line with the recent statements of Pope BENEDICT XVI on the occasion of the Conference of the Diocese of Rome on 5 June. The Pope then spoke of the “inviolability of human life from its conception to its natural end”. He also emphasized that “it is contrary to human love, and to the life of man and woman, to systematically close their own union to the gift of life, and even more so to suppress or violate the life that is being born”. The various projects held in Austria in recent days included a forum held in Vienna by the pro-life association “Aktion Leben” and the initiative “Recht auf Leben” (“right to life”), with a protest march against abortion held in Linz on 4 June. Many interventions have also been made by the Austrian bishops in support of life. MINIMIZING ABORTION. In the sermon he preached in the cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna on 1st June, the auxiliary bishop of the Austrian capital, Msgr. LUDWIG SCHWARZ, lamented the tendency to “minimize abortion” that is widespread in the country, contrasting it with the need to respect the right to life of the unborn child. “No one can arrogate to himself the right to inflict death on another human being”, he admonished. The inviolability of human life, he added, “is a principle of Christian ethics that cannot be changed” and that must be put into practice with a “patient and constant” effort of persuasion. “Of course we need to recognize that decisions against life may have been prompted by difficult and even dramatic circumstances”, explained Schwarz, emphasizing the “situations of suffering and loneliness, lack of economic prospects, depression and fear of the future” that may condition a person’s decision. Nonetheless “abortion cannot be considered a way of escape dictated by the difficult situations of life”. Bishop Schwarz stigmatised “the tendency to interpret the killing of life, whether that of the unborn child or of the terminally ill, as ‘legitimate expression’ of individual freedom, a conception “that contradicts the idea of human rights and that imposes the right of the stronger over the weaker”, while at the same time relativising the fifth commandment and violating “the principle of human co-existence”. THE MIRACLE OF LIFE. “Children are not a product that can be manufactured and planned by a ‘throwaway’ society”, declared Gertraude STEINDL, general secretary of Aktion Leben, during a meeting held in Vienna on 1st June, under the title “Pregnancy and birth: nature, technology, or both?”. “For Aktion Leben it is particularly important to encourage men and women to say ‘yes’ to life “even when the arrival of a baby is not planned”, said Steindl. “The perception of the miracle of life has completely changed”, remarked the paediatrician Marina MARCOVICH, in her address to the meeting. “We can see this, for example, from reproductive medicine: the commercialisation of the desire to have children is the first step to the materialization of life”; “eggs cells and sperm have become merchandise and more especially are selected on the basis of particular criteria. The final step is the freezing of embryos”, she added. Marcovich said she was “worried by the fact that the miracle of the human being is now considered a raw material. Our society is based on the certainty of the fact that we are all a miracle. When this consciousness is lost, we are at each other’s mercy”. “ MESSAGE OF LIFE“. “The demographic trend and the threat of the excessive ageing of the population have signalled ‘the moment of truth’ for Christians”, who must now “proclaim the Gospel as message of life”, said Bishop Klaus KÜNG of St. Pölten, episcopal delegate for family pastoral care, speaking at a meeting during Pro-Life Day. Küng exhorted Christians to “put aside their inferiority complexes and actively contribute to the renewal of society”, especially in consideration of the fact that “the pressure towards euthanasia is becoming perceptible in all European countries. There is the acute danger that the way is being opened to a mentality of production and selection”, he warned.