Politics
Friday September 7, 2007
Nicaragua: Bishop Condemns "Therapeutic" Abortion
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
MANAGUA, September 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bishop Abelardo Mata, the president of the Committee for the Family of the Nicaraguan bishops' conference, has sharply condemned the proposals of some politicians in his country to legalise so-called "therapeutic abortion". Speaking to the international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he stated that Nicaragua had no need of "therapeutic abortion" to protect the rights of its citizens.
The very use of the term "therapeutic" was an ill chosen one, he said, since in reality it was a matter of a "crime". The majority of people in Nicaragua were in favour of the protection of unborn life, and already a petition of 290,000 names had been gathered, opposing the proposed amendment. The Church was decisively opposed to the "obvious attempts to confuse public opinion", he added.
Carlos Polo, the director of the Latin America office of the Population Research Institute, told ACN that this was not the first time that the term "therapeutic abortion" had been used to undermine the legal protection of the unborn child. "We know precisely which international organisations are exerting pressure in order to ensure that unborn children are no longer protected under the law", he said.
This was a well-known strategy. First of all, exceptions to the law were secured, and then finally these exceptional provisions were misused, in order to legalise "every form of abortion", he explained. He congratulated the people and the rulers of Nicaragua on having thus far upheld the national ban on abortion, for in this way Nicaragua had "demonstrated its dignity and its independence as a nation".
So far all abortion is banned in Nicaragua, making this the country with the strictest abortion laws in Latin America. On September 13 a government commission will discuss whether abortion should be permitted when the life of the mother is in danger or the unborn child is found to be handicapped.
The Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) sees the protection of human life and of the family as one of its most important tasks. The founder of the organisation, Father Werenfried van Straaten again and again insisted vigorously, right up to his death in the year 2003, that a stop should be put to the killing of unborn life. ACN continues to support a number of projects for the protection of human life and initiatives for the support of the family.
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.