AMERICA/ECUADOR - Bishops against abortion: “Our Constitution would be polluted with inhumanity were the state to demonstrate inadmissible indifference with regard to the deliberate killing of the unborn child ”

Monday, 30 June 2008

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Quito (Agenzia Fides) - “The Right to Life” is the title of a statement issued by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ecuador expressing concern on behalf of many Ecuadorians with regard to certain articles approved by a Constituent Assembly on June 24.
With regard to article 8 which they cite: , the Bishops say “This right appears unlimited and absolute, irrespective of rights established in other articles ”. Pointing out that as it stands the article refers to the existence of a right “to have an abortion at any moment in pregnancy. The mother or the father of the unborn child, having the right to decide when, can even say no just before the child is born”, the Bishops say, explaining that “the generic inviolability of life, established by article one, gives way to the absolute right of the parents because there is no set moment from which life is inviolable”. This premise establishes an abortist constitutional text which, the Bishops say, “protects many rights except the unborn child's right to life”.
In a heartfelt appeal to the Constituent Assembly the Bishops urge its members “not to undermine the sense of love for life which is typical of our people and our culture and our way of understanding society and the law”. They add that state indifference to the deliberate killing of the innocent child "would pollute our Constitution, and the political programme to which it belongs with inhumanity”.
The Bishops remind Ecuadorian Catholics that “a well formed Catholic conscience would never allow a person to approve a law whose content is contrary to our Christian faith and morals”. The Bishops end with a prayer that good sense may prevail, the mentioned articles rejected, "that social harmony may strengthened and the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of Ecuadorians not be disappointed”. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 30/6/2008)