Lawmakers who vote in favor of abortion in Uruguay incur excommunication

Montevideo, Uruguay, Nov 4, 2008 / 15:07 pm

Archbishop Nicolas Cotugno of Montevideo told the Uruguayan daily El Pais that lawmakers who vote in favor of the legalization of abortion incur automatic excommunication, and stressed that “the values of the human being are not subject to vote.”

As the country’s House of Representatives prepared to vote on a reproductive health law that included the legalization of abortion, the archbishop explained that canon law stipulates that “all those who vote, support and promote abortion are in fact excommunicated.  And it is an excommunication that, according to canon law, is immediate. They are ipso facto excommunicated.”

There are interests behind this, everything that came for the North, from the meetings in Cairo and Beijing.  The U.N.—which is terrible—is pushing for the legalization of abortion for a different vision that is contrary to the family and to the tradition of humanity.  Never before was the nature of the family as the basic cell of society put into question,” he said.

“This is not about religious issues,” the archbishop underscored, but rather about a reality which is not derived from ideological or cultural beliefs, but from natural law that precedes even the very existence of the human being.

Without this truth as the common denominator among all peoples, the archbishop continued, “What universal reference can there be in humanity that ensures human rights? What other human right is more basic than that of the being born and living? Who are we to say, ‘You cannot live, you have no right to life, you have to die’?” he asked.

Archbishop Cotugno expressed his hope that President Tabare Vasquez would veto the measure if it is approved by the House. “I think he is a person of his word. I don’t have any reason to think he will change his mind,” the archbishop said.