Madrid - Controversy was raging Tuesday in Spain over the
liberalization of abortion after the country's Catholic Church
announced a 'massive mobilization' against it.
The rights of flora and fauna were protected better than those of
unborn children, the Bishops' Conference said Monday, in commenting
on a new abortion law which is being prepared by Prime Minister Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist government.
The 'hypocritical' church defended 'stale' points of view,
socialist representative Jose Blanco charged, while Bishops'
Conference spokesman Juan Antonio Martinez Camino said the church
wanted Spaniards to 'think about the need to protect life.'
The government intends to relax the 1985 abortion law, freeing
women from having to justify their abortions in the first 14 weeks of
pregnancy.
More than 100,000 abortions are already performed annually in
Spain, usually on grounds of danger to the mother's psychological
health.
Health Minister Bernat Soria said the reform would put Spanish
legislation in line with other European countries.
The church, however, is planning a campaign of posters and
leaflets showing a child and a lynx, an endangered species. 'And
me? Protect my life!' the child says.
'Sensitivity towards animal protection seems good to us, but it is
paradoxical not to protect the human being,' Camino said.
Biologist Fernando Hiraldo accused the church of unethical
behaviour and 'bad taste' in 'despising' efforts to defend
biodiversity.
About 1,000 scientists and other professionals meanwhile issued a
declaration opposing the liberalization of abortion. An embryo
consisting of a single cell was already a form of human life,
bioethics expert Monica Lopez Barahona said.
The intellectuals criticized the possibility that the new law
might allow girls as young as 16 years to abort without their
parents' knowledge.
The opposition conservative People's Party (PP) said it opposed
the reform, because 'abortion cannot be another contraceptive.'
The church also opposes medical procedures such as the genetic
selection of a child whose umbilical cord was used to cure his older
brother of a severe form of anemia recently in Seville.
Relative peace had reigned for about a year between the government
and the church, whose representatives earlier attended massive
rallies against the legalization of homosexual marriage.
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