Women “in most cases are forced to abort due to unfortunate circumstances such as a lack of sexual or emotional training,” claimed the Colombian Catholic Church on Thursday during this week’s episcopal conference.
While surrounded by a group of supportive women, the general secretary of the conference, Monsignor Daniel Falla, read a letter entitled “For Life and Women,” written by the archbishop of Bogota reiterating the church’s vehement objection to abortion.
“For some months the political debate on abortion ….. has caused diverse feelings politically and socially,” said the letter, no doubt referring to the controversy surrounding Colombia’s Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez, who in September was forced to rectify and retract a statement in which he called sex-education “mass campaigns to promote abortion as a right.”
In Colombia abortion is only allowed in cases that involve rape, danger to the mother’s life, or in the case that the child will be born with severe defects. However Congress is at the moment studying the final legalization that would allow a “broad decriminalization” of abortion.
“No circumstance, however serious, could justify, nor be legally nor morally acceptable, to intentionally cause the death of an innocent human being. Abortion is not a right, and less a fundamental right. There doesn’t exist any international treaty on human rights that recognizes that quality. Because of this, it is not possible for any state to require the legalization of abortion,” proclaimed the archbishop’s letter.
In an echo of Ordoñez’ claims that sex-education was a campaign to “promote abortion,” the letter goes on to say: “Very different it would be if the commitment and the amount of public and private resources that are wasted on the promotion of abortion, were instead spent on protecting the authentic rights and interests of Colombian women.”
What is the “real priority” now, according to the archbishop is to “provide women who have aborted voluntarily or who have been pushed into it, with reconciliation with God and with their children.”