Spanish bishops: No Catholic can support abortion, euthanasia or research with embryos

Madrid, Spain, Mar 28, 2008 / 15:17 pm

The subcommittee on the Family and the Defense of Life of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference reiterated this week that “no Catholic, either in private or public life, can support practices such as abortion, euthanasia or the creation, freezing and manipulation of human embryos in any case.”

In a recent statement entitled, “Life is Always a Good,” the Spanish bishops underscored that “human life is a sacred value which we all must respect and which the laws must protect” from “its beginnings in fertilization until its natural end.”

Released on the occasion of the 7th Pro-Life Day, which will be observed on March 31, the statement rebuffed the argument that Catholics can reject abortion but that it should be made available to non-Catholics, saying abortion is a matter of human rights and not of religion.

Christians are called to continuously confront the many attacks on human life, the bishops stressed, and their efforts can find strong basis in natural law.  “Therefore, they can be shared by all people of upright conscience,” they noted. 

“Just like all of us, the Son of God began his human life in the womb of his Mother,” the bishops continued, stressing that all human life deserves to be accepted, respected and loved, especially when that life “is fragile and needs attention and care, whether before birth or in its final stages.”

Recently, they went on, Spanish society was disturbed by the cases of abortion mills that were killing babies who were in their eighth month and by their ghastly actions to cover it up.  “This reality, which the bishops have been denouncing for years, has brought to the forefront against the debate over abortion in our society,” they said.

“While the end of illegal abortions is a significant step, the genuinely moral and humane thing to do would be to completely abolish the ‘abortion law,’ which is an unjust law,” the bishops asserted.

“The abortion law should be abolished, while at the same time women should be given support, especially when they are mothers, thus creating a new culture in which families welcome and promote life,” they said.  “Adoption is an important alternative.  Thousands of couples have to endure long and tiresome processes to adopt while in Spain more than 100,000 babies died from abortion during 2006,” the bishops emphasized.