Abortion law reform must be more than 'cosmetic,' says Spanish bishop

San Sebastian, Spain, Jan 31, 2012 / 12:00 pm

Bishop Jose Ignacio Munilla of San Sebastian, Spain said he is hopeful that the reforms of the country’s abortion law will not be “merely cosmetic” but will “take into serious consideration” the 1985 ruling of the country’s Constitutional Court that “recognizes the right to life.”

According to Europa Press, in an interview with Radio Euskadi on Jan. 30, Bishop Munilla said the scope of the proposed reforms is not yet known, but that the abortion law passed by the previous administration “is incompatible with current Spanish law as it enshrines abortion as a personal right.”

“We have the duty to fight for the day in which abortion will be a nightmare of the past, like the slavery of those from Africa,” the bishop said.  He noted that women, and not just the unborn, are also the victims of abortion.  “We are seeing more and more women who have had abortions come to us for psychological help, because abortion is always a tragedy,” he said.

In the same interview, Bishop Munilla commented on the decline in the number of Church weddings in Spain, blaming the drop on the high rates of divorce and remarriage outside of the Church.  “This has a great impact on the statistics,” he said.

He also encouraged parents to keep their children in religious education classes and said attempts to expel religion from the public school “can only be understood as crisis of identity.”

“It seems like we are embarrassed of our roots,” he said, adding that it is “impossible” to understand Spanish culture apart from its “religious roots.”