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Nicaraguan President Denounces International Media for Campaign Against Country's Anti-Abortion Laws

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

MANAGUA, January 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com)--Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has harsh words for the international media campaign being waged against his country for its uncompromising defense of the unborn: "It's media war!  Those are the canons and bombs of today, some members of the media who specialize in lying and repeating lies!"

Describing the challenges faced by his government in a speech given in December, Ortega makes reference to the pressure foreign governments have applied to eliminate Nicaragua's total ban on abortions.  "I had a meeting with the friends, the brothers of the European Community, the ambassador was there, and I spoke to them broadly about the phenomenon of Nicaragua, how it was presented."

"It's totally false, what they go around saying, that mountains of women are dying because the penalization of therapeutic abortion was approved in the National Assembly...that is a huge lie, a falsehood!" said Ortega.

The medical Procedural Code, he explained, is not affected by the law, and requires doctors to do what is necessary to save a woman's life if it is threatened by conditions related to her pregnancy.

"A Procedural Code," he said "which guarantees that whenever a woman arrives at a hospital, at a health center, in a risky condition for herself or for the child, we refer here to the birth, the physician has the responsibility to try to save the life of both, of the woman and of the child...the doctor has the obligation!  The ideal is to save both.  If, in the end, tragically, he couldn't save both, logically the mother or the child will have survived, and this is not penalized, it is not penalized!"

Ortega, the leader of the formerly communist Sandinista party that ruled the country during the 1980s, has reconciled with the Catholic Church and his old political foes and won the presidency again in 2006.  The same year his party voted for a new penal code that criminalized all abortions, although the law is not applicable to procedures to save the mother's life.

European countries and international organizations, including the pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality "Human Rights Watch," have repeatedly pressured Nicaragua to alter the law, but it was again affirmed in the penal code reform legislation of 2007.

Read the whole speech in Spanish:

Convenios para el Desarrollo del Pueblo!
http://www.presidencia.gob.ni/191207_ArielDarce.html.

Related LifeSiteNews Coverage.

Human Rights Watch Denounced for "Anti-Democratic Imperialism", Hypocrisy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07110803.html

Nicaragua Overwhelmingly Renews Total Abortion Ban in 66-3 Vote
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/sep/07091308.html

Sweden Cuts Aid to Countries that Oppose its Pro-Abortion Stance
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07083106.html

EU Threatens to Withdraw Aid to Nicaragua if Pro-Life Law Remains
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07020902.html

Nicaragua Congress Passes New Law Outlawing All Abortions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06102604.html

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