If life is misunderstood

“If people are no longer able to understand that life is a duty and a vocation, it is all the more difficult for them to understand other situations of life, both at the personal and community level, as a duty and a vocation. Everything becomes a claim for rights without duties”, writes Monsignor Giampaolo Crepaldi, Secretary of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace and President of the “Cardinal Van Thuân” International Observatory on the Social Doctrine of the Church (www.vanthuanobservatory.org), in the current number of the Observatory’s bulletin. The number is dedicated to respect for the life of the unborn child and in particular the question of abortion in Germany, Slovakia and Poland. According to the Observatory, “the theme of life is strategic for the construction of a human society”. in the current number of the Observatory’s bulletin. The number is dedicated to respect for the life of the unborn child and in particular the question of abortion in Germany, Slovakia and Poland. According to the Observatory, “the theme of life is strategic for the construction of a human society”. GERMANY. “In Germany abortion was legalized for the first time in 1974: the law introduced by the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) de-penalized abortion in the first 12 weeks”, writes MANFRED SPIEKER of the University of Osnabrück, in describing the situation in Germany for the bulletin of the “Cardinal Van Thuân” Observatory. “The law currently in force – he points out – dates to 1995”, after reunification. “It considers as ‘legal’ abortions carried out during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, if motivated by a medical or legal recommendation and on condition that the woman submits to professional advice in a recognized advisory bureau”. In actual fact, “the wide discretion left to medical practice makes it possible for abortion to be carried out throughout pregnancy”. In the 33 years in which abortion has been de-penalized “some 8.5 million unborn children have been killed in Germany”. On the basis of the statistics on abortion of the Federal office of Statistics, “approximately 130,000 children” have been aborted each year since 1995, but a more realistic number is “approximately 230,000”. During the most recent reform of the criminal law on abortion in Germany, both “the legislator and the Constitutional Court were guided by the idea that life in the womb can be better protected through compulsory counselling and the subsequent free decision of the pregnant woman rather than by a prohibition of abortion and its related penalization”, but “the idea has been shown in practice to be mistaken”. “With her social institutions, counselling services, institutes and networks, the Catholic Church in Germany remains the major institution for the protection of pregnant women and unborn children”.SLOVAKIA. “In the field of the protection of life, Slovak legislation presents a strange contradiction between the great democratic values enshrined, albeit partially, in the Constitution and the particular provisions of the specific law on the matter, influenced by a reductive concept of the value of life”, explains STANISLAV KOSC of the Catholic University of Ružomberok. While the Constitution of 1993 guarantees the right to life in article 16, the legislation on abortion, which dates to 1957, considers abortion “a fact of life and requires for its execution, at the woman’s request, a certificate issued by a special Commission”, without specifying “any limitation of time from conception beyond which abortion cannot be performed”. Since then a deadline of 12 weeks has been established, but at the same time the authorization by the Commission has been abolished. More recently the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Movement has presented a recourse to the Constitutional Court in which it denounces “the contradiction between the law on abortion and the Constitution”, but “the Court has so far deferred its ruling”. The Slovak Bishops’ Conference “has twice expressed itself [on the issue] in the form of a pastoral letter, but seems reluctant to re-open ‘thorny’ questions at a time unfavourable to solving them”. Various lay organizations that deal with public opinion in this field, have amalgamated to form the Pro-Life Forum, which annually organises an awareness-raising campaign on the occasion of the Day of the Unborn Child (25 March). POLAND. “Abortion was legalized for the first time” in Poland in 1943 with a regulation of the German occupying forces, but this was abrogated after the end of the Second World War, points out PIOTR MAZURKIEWICZ of the Institute of Political Sciences of the “Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski” University in Warsaw. Abortion legislation was introduced for the second time in 1956, without any time limits. In 1993 a new law was adopted, in which it is recognized that “human life is the fundamental good of man”. Since then various measures have been issued, successively providing 4, 5 and most recently 3 cases in which abortion is possible. Various attempts have been made to change the law and make it more permissive. From the opposing front, an attempt was made this year to amend the Constitution so that it would uphold the right to life “from conception to natural death”. But this initiative also failed. Various initiatives promoted by the pro-life associations (130 of them joined in the Polish Federation of Pro Life Movements) include the Crusade of Prayers for Unborn Children and the Spiritual Adoption of an Unborn Child. The Catholic Church runs a network of Houses for single mothers (45 diocesan centres) which offer sanctuary to pregnant women, also for some time after the birth of their child.