Madrid, Spain, Oct 7, 2009 / 17:33 pm
The spokesperson for Right to Life in Spain, Gador Joya, has challenged the country’s Vice President, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, to be consistent and act on comments she made on a local radio station. Joya is urging her to withdraw the proposed reforms of Spain’s abortion laws, which according to the vice president, have fractured Spanish society.
In an interview on the COPE radio network, Fernandez de la Vega said the question of when life begins is controversial. “It is a moral and scientific debate which I respect,” she said, adding that “society is split 50-50” on the bill allowing abortion on demand.
However, she went on to justify the measure, saying “greater guarantees, greater security for women” are needed, and that Spanish laws on abortion need to fall in line with those of its European neighbors.
Joya responded that “there is no scientific debate about the beginning of life, but rather on the contrary, it is an undisputed fact, unanimously recognized by the scientific community, that individual human life begins at the moment of conception.”
The pro-life leader lamented that “the vice president talks about legal guarantees when the legal security of the life of the child is going to be at the mercy of the mother’s will and the interests of the abortion industry during the first fourteen weeks. There will only be more security for the promoters of abortion, but the child and the mother will be more unprotected than ever.”
Joya also noted that the bill would not bring Spanish laws in line with those of other European countries because “the abortion agenda of Mr. Zapatero is the most radical and violent in all of Europe.”
If the government wanted to bring Spain into line, “it could have brought Spain into line on policies that support the birth rate and by helping women to exercise their right to be mothers. Instead it has chosen the most extreme abortion agenda that is harmful to both mother and child,” Joya said.