Colombian official calls on court to overturn decision requiring schools to teach abortion is a 'right'

Bogotá, Colombia, Oct 26, 2009 / 18:32 pm

Colombia’s Attorney General, Alejandro Ordonez Maldonado, announced that he would be asking the country’s Constitutional Court to overturn a ruling that would force schools to teach students that abortion is a right.
 
Ordonez remarked that he would challenge the ruling ordering the Ministries of Social Protection and of Education to promote massive campaigns related to sexual and reproductive rights, especially in regard to abortion.

For his part, the secretary general of the Colombian Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba Villota, said, “Catholic educators are not going to teach this.  We are going to teach the respect for life.”

Bishop Cordoba noted that both rabbis and Christian leaders in Colombia share the same view as the Catholic Church.  “We emphatically reject this ruling.  We are not going to defy any order, but rather as Catholics, Christians or Jews we cannot be forced to accept it.”