Dominican archdiocese to hold pro-life demonstration outside legislature

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Aug 25, 2018 / 05:01 am

An archdiocese in the Dominican Republic is organizing a pro-life demonstration next month in front of the Palace of Congress in the capital.

Archbishop Francisco Ozoria Acosta of Santo Domingo said the aim of the Sept. 9 demonstration is "to express publicly our support of what is established in our Constitution regarding the right to life from conception to natural death, as the Church teaches us."

In May 2017, the Senate rejected a series of recommendations by the government to decriminalize abortion in the country.

But this July, hundreds of activists turned out in Santo Domingo for a march to support the legalization of abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fatal fetal deformity, Hoy Digital reported.

And Rubén Maldonado, president of the Chamber of Deputies and a member of the Dominican Liberation Pary, has introduced a bill decriminalizing abortion.

Fr. Catalino Tejada Ramírez told El Caribe July 30 that decriminalization of abortion would lead the Dominican Republic toward a culture of dehumanization.

"We would be disrespecting the right to life of the most defenseless and vulnerable. We would be once again mocking our Constitution and we would become a nation invaded by the colonization of the culture of death and we could no longer speak of God, country and freedom as our founding fathers dreamed of."

If abortion is approved, "we're destroying the person, we're taking destructive models they've taken in other countries and the sole result we will have is the destruction of the family, and with it, the destruction of society," Fr. Ramirez stated.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.