By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
MADRID, December 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In the face of an exploding scandal involving illegal late term abortions at private clinics, socialist President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is urging his party to reexamine the issue of abortion.
In recent weeks, Spain has been rocked by revelations of numerous late-term abortions done in violation of Spanish law at clinics in Barcelona and Madrid. Television news networks and national newspapers have revealed to the public the horrifying reality of abortion in Spain: fetuses at five to eight months gestation poisoned with saline solution, chopped to pieces and thrown into the trash or flushed into the sewer (see recent LifeSiteNews coverage at https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121401.html).
The abortions, almost all of them illegal under Spanish law, have been facilitated by an industry of private for-profit clinics that systematically falsifies documents to justify the procedures, which can only be done on late-term fetuses if a “health” reason is certified by two independent physicians.
Multiple clinics have been shut down by government authorities and Spain’s “abortion king” Carlos Morin is in jail without bond awaiting trial, along with other doctors and clinic personnel.
Sources told the news agency Europa Press that some within the Executive Commission of the ruling Socialist Worker’s Party of Spain (PSOE) wanted to push for a new law that would allow abortions on demand up to a yet-unspecified maximum week of gestation, after which restrictions would apply. The same law was proposed as early as 2004 but never passed.
Europa Press reports that other party leaders don’t want to commit to any policy but agree that they need “to reflect on the problem of illegal abortions that, moreover, have created a resurgence of the most belligerent postures against abortion,” according to the agency.
The ballooning scandal that now involves at least seven clinics and thirteen personnel in Spain’s two largest cities is adding to the difficulties faced by Spain’s socialists as the country moves towards presidential elections in March of 2008.
The Zapatero government has already enraged and simultaneously galvanized Catholic opponents with the legalization of homosexual “marriage” as well as a mandatory program that seeks to indoctrinate Spanish students with pro-homosexual ideology and other “civic” values of the European Union, called “Education for Citizenship and Human Rights”.
These and other political factors are turning public opinion against Zapatero and the Socialist Worker’s Party. Parliamentary election polls show a dead heat with the opposition People’s Party, and Zapatero’s approval rating is falling.
In recent months, Zapatero has sought to heal the rift with the Catholic bishops of the country, appointing a self-described “socialist Catholic” as Vatican ambassador and promising not to make any further reforms in the educational system if he is reelected. The country’s bishops remain suspicious of his motives.
Related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
FULL ABORTIONS SHOWN ON SPANISH TELEVISION – FIRST IN HISTORY
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121401.html
More Abortion Clinics are Closed by Spanish Government Authorities
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121402.html
Spanish Pro-Life Activists Seek New Investigations of Abortionists Following Arrests
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07120710.html
Late Term Abortionist Arrested by Spain’s Police
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112913.html
Contact Information:
Embassy of Spain in the USA
Ambassador D. Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza.
2375 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Telephone: (202) 452-0100; (202) 728-2340
Fax: (202) 833-5670
E-mail:
Embassy of Spain in Canada
74 Stanley Avenue , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1M 1P4
Telephone (613) 747-2252, 7293, 1143/241-0542(24h)
Fax (613) 744-1224
For a list of Spanish embassies around the world see
https://www.spanish-living.com/info_embassies.htm