Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Fides Service) - Fides spoke with Jaime Urcelay Alonso jurist and chairman of the Associations of Professionals for Ethics which strives to promote and defend ethic values in public life. To fight the law which would allow same sex couples to adopt children, the Association launched a "Children Have Rights" campaign.
This law allowing same sex couples to adopt children goes against the basic rights of the child doesn’t it?
Certainly. The socialist government is presenting this amendment to Spain’s civil code as a conquest of equal rights for homosexuals. Besides being false in itself this amendment masks one very serious aspect of the project: the open violation of the child’s basic rights such as psychic wellbeing and the right to be educated and loved by his or her mother and father.
If the law is definitely approved by Congress after being passed by the Senate it will clearly be an unjust law and persons called to apply it as state representatives will be under no obligation to do so. Judges, mayors and city counsellors have the right to conscientious objection a primary demand our inviolable personal dignity. This right has its foundation in the Spanish Constitution as two important judiciary statements have affirmed.
From the juridical point of view, which principles and laws can be invoked against this law which violates the rights of children?
In Spanish law adoption is based on the principles of the child’s wellbeing and integration into a family. The norm ratifies other more general ones such as the 1959 International Declaration of Child’s Rights, the 1989 Convention in the Rights of the Child and Spain’s own Constitution all of which agree that legislation must guarantee the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. Our Constitution affirms that public authorities have the duty to guarantee children total protection. With regard to Europe we cannot fail to mention the European Human Rights Court which in 2002 confirmed the French administration’s decision to refuse a request to adopt a child made by homosexual Philippe Fretté.
The purpose of adoption is to guarantee the wellbeing of a minor, rather than to satisfy an adult’s desire to be a parent. This is why couples who want to adopt a child are so severely screened beforehand. Is it not a contradiction of this principle to allow a child to be adopted by a same-sex couple?
Without a doubt. I have already mentioned our main legal references which should make it impossible for a child to be entrusted to a same-sex couple. Unfortunately when at the end of March the Spanish region of Cataluna amended its Family Code to allow this aberration it caused a serious fracture in national legislation. Now if the Bill is approved by the central government, as it appears probable, to speak of aptitude screening for would-be parents will become almost absurd.
But there is another aspect to take into consideration. According to official statistics, in 2004 Spain adopted 5,541 children from other countries: Spain is first in Europe and second in the world for the number of international adoptions. The countries from which the children adopted by Spain come, mainly China, Russia and Ukraine and in this order, do not allow adoption by same sex couples, they are not keen on one parent families and they prefer to give a child to a married man and wife.. The reason is evident: the country wants its homeless children to have a home and a mother and father who are married, a real family.
Association of Professionals for Ethics of which you are chairman sent the Spanish government a memorandum demanding respect for the rights of the child. What were the main points of the memorandum?
The Association of Professionals for Ethics is an independent social initiative which for almost fifteen years has promoted respect for the dignity of the person and full recognition of human rights. Our method is investigation, consultation and formulate of proposals and alternatives. This is why as soon as we heard about this new law we decided to launch our ‘Children Have Rights’ campaign.
The campaign is articulated in different actions. Our calls through the media and our Memorandum addressed to the public and to the national authorities have been most successful. Our Memorandum was signed by at least a thousand professionals all working to promote children’s rights, education and development. The initiative put us in contact with people who know what they are talking about in this field. For example a group of adoptive parents spontaneously offered to tell us about their personal experience with regard to the needs of children.
To put it very briefly in our memorandum we demand respect for the rights of children and underline the fact that these rights are incompatible with adoption by same sex couples. I refer to the child’s right to have the figure of a mother and father; the right to belong to a family as similar as possible to his own natural family, the union of a man and a woman, who are able to recreate and whose union can produce life; the right to grow in an environment which guarantees physical, intellectual and moral development; lastly the right not to suffer discrimination or traumatic experiences but to grow under the same conditions and equal opportunities as other children who have their own mother and father.
What was the government’s reaction ?
The Memorandum which our Association of Professionals for Ethics sent to the government met with a wall of silence, not to say scorn, as did similar initiatives on the part of the Council of State, the General Judiciary Council, the Royal Academy of Law and Legislation unanimous in their condemnation of the law which see as a grave error. The same intransigent deafness was encountered by the organisations which form the Spanish Family Forum with its 500,000 signatures to a Popular Legislative Initiative in favour of marriage and the family. So now the next step is to bring people in Madrid into the streets next month, on June 18, with a massive rally to show that the family in Spain is alive and that government must stop attacking our families and our children. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 20/5/2005, righe 89, parole 1.101)
