Opinion

Editor’s note: The following editorial was published in From the Faith (Desde la Fe), the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, on January 6, in response to legislation passed by the city’s government on December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which protects animals from mistreatment with a worse penalty than for those who kill unborn children.

Translated and adapted to English by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman (original in Spanish here)

Two legislatures ago, the Legislative Assembly of Mexico City decided with impunity to “depenalize abortion” up to twelve weeks of gestation, ignoring the voice and cry of the citizens to protect life from the moment of conception to natural death, thus permitting the killing of a human being in the womb of his mother without any punishment for his executioner.

Then, it hypocritically recognized human life as a protected juridical good, and established that abortion is a crime if someone kills a child in the womb of his mother from 13 weeks of gestation.  This is stipulated in article 145 of the Penal Code of Mexico City, which provides minimal penalties between three and six months in prison, or between 100 and 300 days of community service, for the mother who decides to terminate the life of her son from 13 weeks of gestation until he is born, that is to say, whenever she decides to abort.

Many of the representatives who returned to this new Legislative Assembly are among those who favor the culture of death in our city and who are part of a conglomerate of false liberals who say that they protect life, including animal life.  They offer this as a gift of “modern Herods” on the very Day of the Innocents in which we remember the terror that was experienced in the time of Jesus with the decreed annihilation of newborns.

The representatives of the Legislative Assembly not only do not rectify their perverse legislation, but take pleasure in unanimously approving the punishment of “the mistreatment of animals,” which according to them is based on the premise of respecting the animal’s lives. The new law creates a crime that says that those who cause the death of an animal by mistreatment or cruelty may be punished with up to four years in prison and a fine up to 400 days of minimum wage earnings. 

What an upside down world our new representatives inhabit!  Killing a child in gestation cannot be penalized with more than six months or a little community service, and mistreating animals can bring four years of prison and in addition, a fine.

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One of the representatives who signed the decree, said that “with the laws as they are, the Legislative Assembly of Mexico City has become a mirror of what is happening in our more conscious and alert society, which understands that the only difference between human beings and animals is the fact that we can think and we are conscious of that.”  What the representative neglected to say is that for the legislators, animal life is worth very much more than human life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of animals as creatures of God, whose simple existence blesses God and gives him glory, and also says that men owe them respect.  Consider the delicacy with which Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Felipe Neri treated animals. But the Catechism also says that God entrusted the animals to the administration that He created, and therefore it is legitimate to use animals for food and the creation of clothing.

However, it makes it very clear that it is contrary to human dignity to needlessly cause suffering for animals and to dispose of their lives without necessity, and that it is also unworthy to invest resources in them that should rather be used to relieve the suffering of men. “One can love animals,” it says, “but one cannot direct to them the affection proper only to human beings.”

Therefore, we are in agreement that all life should be respected, but our legislators must not forget that having more compassion for animal life than for human life is clearly an act of dehumanization.