LIMA, June 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The people of Peru are protesting a decision by the Health Minister to allow free distribution of the abortifacient morning-after pill.
“As a doctor, as a minister and as a woman, there’s no way I’d accept anything that was an attack on life,” Dr. Pilar Mazzetti said at a news conference Tuesday, as reported by Reuters news.
Peru’s constitution has, within it, an explicit defence for the unborn. Abortion there is illegal except in cases where a mother’s life is in danger. Mazzetti agrees with pro-life opponents, that the pill prevents implantation of an embryo—her claim, however, is that life begins at implantation, according to an Associated Press account. Former Health Minister Fernando Carbone said, “Let’s tell the truth: it’s a form of chemical abortion.”
Rafael Rey, a pro-life Catholic Congressman and member of the opposition party, told the AP, “We are going to use all of the legal paths to continue trying to defend the human rights of the most innocent and defenceless beings – the recently conceived.”
Read the related Zenit story, “Peru’s Push for the Morning-After Pill Is Criticized,” at: https://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=40021