Church campaign sparks debate about abortion in Spain (Roundup)

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.