Buenos Aires, Argentina, Apr 19, 2007 / 05:52 am
Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata has denounced the Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires for granting “permission to kill,” since “by granting permission to abort, one is granting permission to kill.”
During his weekly program “Keys to a Better World,” the archbishop explained that the Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires “has recently established a protocol for how to proceed with abortion cases that are referred to in the Penal Code.”
“Now, in each hospital,” the archbishop said, “the director will have to appoint an interdisciplinary team that will decide whether or not to allow an abortion in a particular case. And the curious thing is that this interdisciplinary team cannot include persons who are against abortion.”
“Moreover, hospitals will have to draw up a list, which will evidently function as a black list, of conscientious objectors, in order to determine who those individuals are who will not endorse such a practice,” the archbishop said.
“Even if the woman who is dealing with this problem is a minor or is mentally handicapped, her legal representative cannot oppose an abortion and if it is someone who on principle is against abortion, he or she must be removed from the case. Consequently the abortion must take place, like it or not.”
He also explained that the new protocol also requires that the abortion take place as soon as possible to avoid cases, such as the one last year in which doctors refused to perform an abortion, but “in the end the abortion was that was carried out was in reality infanticide.”
Archbishop Aguer criticized officials for ramming through a new policy in the dark of night that allows for abortion, even though the Argentinean Constitution recognized the right to life of the unborn.
“We are forgetting that the main person involved in these matters is the unborn child. No one talks about him, no one talks about the unborn child, but permission is being granted to kill him! And those who defend his right to life are quiet, or they join the choir of victimizers,” the archbishop said.