NO GAY TIMES AHEAD

Currently Spain’s centre right Partido Popular has a clear lead over the PSOE administration in the opinion polls and would govern with a clear majority. However the general election is not expected before March 2012 and a week let alone 17 months is a long time in politics.


None the less if as predicted the PP takes power then the country is in for a profound culture shock. Since Zapatero’s socialist government came to power it has followed an extremely liberal agenda upsetting those on the right and the Catholic Church along the way. Now the president of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, has signalled he intends to pull Spain back to the straight and narrow.

In an interview with El País on Sunday Rajoy said that he is considering annulling the law that allows Gay marriages should his party win the next general election although the measure has been approved by the Constitutional Court.

Rajoy pointed out his party had appealed before the court in 2005 to have the law rejected. It recognised homosexual marriages along with the normal adoption, pension and inheritance rights bestowed on heterosexual marriages for same sex couples. He added that he believed the legislation distorted the social and legal institution of marriage.

The law that puts homosexual and lesbian couples on the same footing as heterosexuals was introduced by the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. It was opposed by various conservative sectors headed by the Catholic Church yet opinion polls at the time suggested the measure was supported by the majority of Spaniards.

Rajoy said if he became premier he would listen to the Constitutional court and to the people but made it clear he did not favour Gay marriages and believed them to be unconstitutional.

Asked by El País would he repeal the law if the highest Spanish court insisted it was legal Rajoy answered “no”. However it is clear that if the PP takes power not only would Gay marriages be under the spotlight but Rajoy’s government would also revisit the new abortion law which it believes does not sufficiently protect the right to life.

Rajoy told the newspaper: “I am absolutely in disagreement with two things: first, that a girl of 16 years can have an abortion without the knowledge of her parents; and second, I am against how they treat the right to life in this law because it allows total liberty in the first 14 weeks.”

NEW LAW OPENS OLD WOUNDS

Spain’s highly controversial abortion law has been passed by the lower house of parliament – Congress – but it is still making its way through the Senate. However the Ley del Aborto has already opened up old wounds between the Catholic Church and the ruling socialist party.

This situation has come about because of the decision by the Catholic Church hierarchy to ban a leading member of the PSOE government from receiving communion. José Bono is a staunch Catholic but he is also president of the lower house of Spain’s parliament. In an interview with the daily newspaper, El Mundo, he voiced his support for the new law which he voted in favour of when it was approved by Congress in December.

Bono argued in the interview that he supported the new law because he understood that it would reduce the number of abortions and that, according to the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, “politicians can vote for laws governing abortion if they believe that they are reducing the evil it causes.”

However the Spanish Episcopal Conference has refuted this thesis. In a letter to El Mundo the bishops state that this Encyclical allows a Catholic to vote for an abortion law that reduces the injustice of the current legislation but the politician is obliged to vote against any law which does not adequately protect the inviolable right to life of those who are yet to be born.

The Catholic Church in Spain feels itself under attack by the very liberal PSOE administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on numerous fronts including abortion, divorce, gay rights and education. In recent history the church was closely associated with the dictatorship of Franco and hence generations of distrust have grown up between it and those on the left of Spanish politics.

The vice secretary general of PSOE, José Blanco, waded in to the battle after the church barred Bono from receiving communion. He has accused the church of “hypocrisy” pointing out that it took no action against members of the former Partido Popular government of José María Aznar that introduced the present abortion law.

Bono accused the Catholic Church of “a permanent contradiction” because it didn’t deny communion “to members of the government of the right under whom in our country there have been over 500,000 abortions.”

Thus the fight over the right to life of the unborn child has descended in to old animosities with socialists believing that the church favours its allies on the right above those on the left – even devout Catholics such as PSOE’s José Bono.

AÍDO – AN ABORTION?

There comes a time in every politician’s career when he or she either rises to the occasion or falls. Bibiana Aído has failed that test.

Bibiana Aído is Spain’s minister of equality and is charged with introducing the new ‘Ley de Salud Sexual y Reproductiva y de Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo’. They key element of this law is the reduction of the time at which an abortion can be carried out and that women aged 16 can have an abortion without telling their parents.

What is important in such a debate is that the minister involved fully understands the facts and Aído clearly doesn’t. Indeed her ideas are an abortion as she clearly hasn’t mastered her brief.

Asked by a listener on the Cadena SER radio station whether a foetus of 13 weeks was not already a baby Aído replied: “Un ser vivo, claro, lo que no podemos hablar es de ser humano porque eso no tiene ninguna base científica”. In other words we can’t say the foetus is human because there is no scientific basis to say that.

As this statement caused immediate furore including calls for her resignation Aído quickly backed tracked issuing a statement: “No hay evidencia científica para decir que es un ser humano ni para no decirlo y me baso en el manifiesto que han elaborado los científicos.” In short science hasn’t decided whether a 13 week old foetus is human or not.

I am for contraception and the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.

I support abortion when the health or life of the mother is in danger. I can also agree to medical intervention in case of rape.

However I do not accept the use of abortion as a form of belated contraception or agree that the wishes of the would-be mother overrule the rights of the unborn child.

I also believe that Aído has missed the point. Once an egg has been fertilized the process of creating a human life has started. We all travelled that route and whilst scientists obviously disagree about when the egg develops sufficiently to become human there is no disagreement that we are interfering with a life or I should add - the right to life.

HAND OF HOPE

I am grateful to a reader of this blog for sending me this moving email. I pass it on to you without comment…it needs no words from me.

Please read before viewing picture - it's worth it!

A picture began circulating in November. It should be ‘The Picture of the Year,’ or perhaps, ‘Picture of the Decade.’ It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with Spina Bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, 'Hand of Hope.' The text explaining the picture begins, 'The tiny hand of 21-week- old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.'

Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said: ‘The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person.’ Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

Now see the actual picture - and how awesome and completely incredible it is.... pass it on. The world needs to see this one!

DERECHO A VIVIR

I have written here before about my unshakable belief that we do not have the right to kill the unborn foetus – and that an unborn child has the God given right to live.

I am prepared to make allowances in certain circumstances for abortions – such as when there is a threat to the life or health of the mother.

I also accept contraception and the use of condoms to fight Aids.

I defend the rights of women but I do not believe that abortion should be used as a belated form of contraception.

I firmly believe that unless we are willing to defend the rights of the unborn child – who on earth will?

Having fought mentally and physically for my own son to survive when he was born under two pounds, was feared to be on the brink of death on numerous occasions, lived in an incubator for months before finally winning through, I for one am prepared to fight for anyone’s right to life.

Hence perhaps it is symbolic that a DAV campaigner, Jaime, who shares the same name as my son was brutally beaten in Terrol as he collected signatures for the petition. He said he is fine except when he looks in the mirror...and carried on campaigning declaring it is his conscience that dictates his actions and not thugs.

Last Saturday, April 25, ‘Derecho a Vivir’ from Algeciras and La Línea collected signatures for a petition against the proposed abortion law in those two towns and in Tarifa. Over 2,000 people signed in three hours.

This campaign was carried out in the major towns and cities of Spain with the aim of reaching 112,138 signatures in a day – a symbolic figure as that is how many abortions were performed in this country in 2007. In the event over 200,000 people signed.

It is perhaps apt that in Cádiz province, the birthplace of the Minister of Equality, Bibiana Aído, there are more DAV groups than anywhere else in Spain other than Madrid. Whilst she promotes her abortion law she has been slow to condemn those who broke the law of the land by attacking Jaime on the street in Terrol in the name of her proposals.

To learn more about this very real battle for the right to live visit the DAV website at http://derechoavivir.org – and if you feel able to pledge your support – do. It’s a matter of life or death.

OUR PARENTS WOULDN’T DO THAT!

When I was eleven and in my first year at Grammar School there was a lad in our class of Polish parentage, highly intelligent but with nervous shakes when agitated. Needless to say he was ridiculed unmercilessly. However he was treated with total derision when he turned up at school with a medical text book showing how babies were conceived. The facts of life were rejected out of hand to the cry “our parents wouldn’t do that!” - and the consensus was indeed that the boy was mad.

By the time I reached the fifth year, now at a Comprehensive School, one of the lads boasted to the class about his sexual prowess. He told us that he used the rubber that formed the ink reservoir inside his fountain pen as a condom. The rubber tube was about the width of a pencil and a third of the length. What I find incredulous now is not that he made the claim but we all believed him.

We went on to be the generation of the Swinging Sixties – the age of free love or more correctly free sex. I have to say that nobody in my circle had an unwanted pregnancy or indeed an abortion… the pill ruled O.K. Yet I am not as naive as to believe it didn’t happen – after all this was also the generation of “Up The Junction” (1963 book, 1965 TV and 1968 film) and back street abortions.

On today’s UK news there is much angst over the problems of teenage pregnancies and abortions – how Britain leads the league table in Europe. In my blog of last week I gave the annual figure for abortions in Spain and mentioned the government’s policy to allow 16-year-olds the right to have an abortion without informing their parents.

Whatever the cause of this boom in unwanted pregnancies is it is not lack of knowledge. If you repeated the above stories to a first or fifth year pupil at senior school they would look at you in disbelief. Whilst for my generation sex education is what you did behind the bike sheds (when you weren’t smoking) today it’s on the curriculum. Contraception of all types is freely available. So the boom in teenage pregnancies is not down to lack of knowledge or the availability of protection – so what is the cause?

THE LYNX AND THE BABY

The Catholic Church in Spain has launched a campaign to defend the rights of the unborn child.

It has produced a poster that states that the lynx, one of the world’s endangered species, has more protection under the law in Spain than the foetus.

Now this has caused ridicule and anger amongst those who support the extension of the abortion laws in Spain. It has also infuriated ecologists.

In the latter case I share their ire. There is a big enough battle as it is to defend our endangered species and flora without the issue being clouded in this way. I also remember full well that one of the reasons cruelty against animals is so prevalent is that the Catholic Church of old in Spain preached that the lynx and other creatures were not important –because they had no souls.

I am also willing to accept that a woman has a right to an abortion if her life is endangered, because of a medical condition or she has been raped.

But, and oh yes there’s always a but here, I do not accept that because a couple copulated and the girl ended up pregnant or whatever other circumstances prevailed she has the right to end a life just to benefit hers.

I differ from the Catholic Church over contraception plus many of its attitudes to sex but by and large I accept its argument on abortion.

It is estimated that 120,000 foetuses – babies – people like you and me - are aborted in Spain each year. Now the Spanish Government wants to allow girls aged 16 to have an abortion without having to tell her parents.

I am all for human rights. I am all for the rights of women. I support the protection of our flora and fauna. However, isn’t it time we offered protection to the foetuses – the unborn children – because if we don’t speak for them – who will?