Despite huge national demonstrations and the labelling of abortion as "Mega Genocide" at a recent pro-life conference, the Spanish Government, to the dismay of life and family organisations, has enacted a new and radical abortion law.
The Spanish Family Forum, Foro de la Familia issued the following statement on the newly approved law
Madrid, 17 December 2009. Today is a day of sadness for Spanish society because the Congress of Deputies, ignoring not only the opinion of more than 2 million Spanish citizens in their recent demonstration in favour of life but also the majority of public opinion as shown in all the recent surveys, has passed the new “Law on Abortion” and imposed the view of a short-term majority to protect the lucrative abortion industry.
The President of Spanish Family Forum, Benigno Blanco,in a statement said:
“The Law which was passed today in the Congress is one of the most radical in the world, because it not only makes the unborn child more vulnerable than ever before, but it also establishes the right to abortion as a part of women’s right to health and puts in place mechanisms to impose this doctrine throughout the Spanish educational and health systems. As far as I know, there is no precedent for a law which, apart from legalizing abortion, imposes the view that abortion is a good thing and forms part of the right to health and life of all women”.
Benigno Blanco further adds:
“this law favours neither women nor the unborn child. It favours exclusively those who make a living out of abortion and those radical minorities who defend gender ideology. It undermines both the trust of children in their parents and the right of parents to educate their children in the sexual and affective values of their choice; it restricts the rights of medical personnel and it leaves pregnant women in a state of total abandonment”.
The passing of this law according to the statement does not mean the end of the abortion debate in Spain; a large number of associations, Spanish Family Forum among them, will continue their fight to make heard the voices of unborn children, women and medical personnel and to defend the right to freedom of education for school children, university students and parents.
The statement also says that the Spanish Family Forum undertakes to continue the struggle to recreate a new culture in favour of life in Spain and will do all in its power to help and protect pregnant girls and women in situations of great difficulty so that they have other options than abortion.
The new law in effect means the following:
a) Total vulnerability of the unborn child during the first 14 weeks of life. These children will have less protection than many flora and fauna.
b) Limit-free abortion and fraudulent application of the law until the 22nd week of pregnancy under cover of “grave danger to the mental health (of the mother)”
c) Abortion for reasons of eugenics or euthanasia until the end of the pregnancy, with no time limit whatsoever.
d) Total abandonment of the pregnant woman in a situation of extreme difficulty in which the law offers only abortion as a way out of her difficulties.
e) Total absence of support measures for the pregnant woman.
f) Vulnerability of minors, who are deprived of the help and support of their parents when faced with a pregnancy. In effect this deprives parents of the custody of their
children.
g) The legalization of an ideology – that which supports the view of sexuality as part of “health and reproductive rights” – which will be imposed on the whole of Spanish society regardless of the ideological and religious pluralism which exists in our society.
h) Violation of the principle of freedom of education and the right of parents to educate their children in accordance with their moral convictions, since gender ideology will be imposed in the educational system from Primary Education upwards as if it were the only possible type of sexual education.
i) Violation of the professional freedom of medical personnel by restricting freedom of conscience in the case of abortion, by making the teaching of abortion techniques compulsory in medical training and by imposing gender ideology and reproductive health rights throughout the public health system.
