Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Apr 27, 2009 / 12:46 pm
Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez denied last week that the Church pressured lawmakers to vote to reject the legalization of abortion. The cardinal also said if that had occurred, it would have been a step backwards for the country.
“To me it is very clear that we have taken the correct position, the one we need, and I am happy, and I congratulate the lawmakers because regardless of the pressures or the lack thereof, they are like other people and they voted against it,” the cardinal said.
The Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, reiterated that “direct abortion is always an immoral act, a murder.”
“The term therapeutic abortion does not exist in ecclesial terminology, it is always a sin and this is not debatable. We must always seek to save the life of both mother and child,” he added, saying abortion is a moral and not a political problem.
The Caribbean island nation's lawmakers voted last week by a margin of 167 to 32 to protect the right to life from conception to natural death.