The spokesman for the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Bishop Luis Argüello, has described as "bad news the bill "on sexual and reproductive health and voluntary interruption of pregnancy" approved by the Spanish government.
The new law allows minors to have an abortion without parental consent, "shields" access to abortion in public centers and eliminates the 3-day reflection period and the information that was given to the woman in order to be able to carry out the pregnancy.
In a message issued by the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Bishop Argüello emphasizes that "the defense and protection of life is one of the sources of civilization. One of the red lines that express the moral health of a people".
Argüello recalled that to consider abortion as a "right" is to affirm the "right of the strong over the weak when it comes to eliminating a new and different life that exists in the womb of the mother" and wanted to emphasize that "the advances of science make us affirm, with full force, that in the womb of a pregnant woman there is a new life that must be welcomed and cared for, for which the mother must be defended".
A law without alternatives to abortion
The new law pays little attention to women who want to become mothers, even though difficulties may arise. In fact, it focuses on promoting the elimination of the baby, for example in the reinforcement of the "training of professionals in the field of voluntary termination of pregnancy".
Among what this law considers "reproductive rights", it also contemplates that "women between 16 and 18 years of age and women with disabilities may have access to voluntary termination of pregnancy without the permission of their legal guardians,
It also includes as a crime the actions of groups such as rescuers who, in a peaceful manner, offer many women alternatives to abortion until the last moment.
The spokesperson of the EEC did not hesitate to defend the need to offer women "the economic, labor and housing conditions... to welcome this new life. Argüello stressed that the moral health of a society is demonstrated in its defense of life from "the womb, passing through all the vicissitudes of life until the final moment of death as part of existence".
