Posted on 09/19/2009 1:19:08 PM PDT by Graybeard58
SANTO DOMINGO, September 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Dominican Republic has given the final approval to a constitutional amendment protecting the right to life.
"The right to life is inviolable from conception until death. In no case can the death penalty be established, pronounced, nor applied," the amendment states.
The vote, which took place last night in a constitutional assembly created to revise the nation's charter document, was an overwhelming 128-34, despite heavy campaigning by international pro-abortion groups and rumored pressure from the United States.
Dr. Gene Antonio, a Dominican pro-life activist, told LifeSiteNews in early August that "The White House was here during the last vote, and we've been told that another commission of ten people is down here specifically with the intention of pressuring this government in favor of voting for child killing."
The former human rights organization "Amnesty International," which is now a pro-abortion lobbying group, attempted to pressure the government in the days preceding the vote, claiming that the amendment will "put women and girls at risk and potentially increase maternal deaths in the country."
Amnesty continues to make this claim, despite the fact that statistical evidence from countries that have penalized abortion in the past which shows that maternal mortality tends to decline following such reforms. A recent LifeSiteNews exposé on Amnesty International revealed that the organization falsified statistical evidence from Nicaragua's maternal mortality rate in an apparent attempt to cover up the evidence against their position.
Officials from the ironically-named United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) also reportedly pressured the government in April not to pass the amendment, without success.
Frs. Manuel Ruiz and Luis Rosario, who have spearheaded efforts by the Catholic Church to protect the value of human life on the island, said that "the country should be celebrating because what they [pro-abortion groups] were trying to implant was a culture of abortion" and rejoiced that the country chose the right to life instead of "the international disorder," according to the Dominican newspaper Listin Diario.
"God did the miracle," they said. "With this recognition of life, the birth certificate has been given to the right of the mother to all rights, which is the right to life from the moment of conception." Contact Information:
Wow, a tip of my hat to all of them in D.R.
Awesome news. So glad the D.R. is standing for the unborn, despite pressure from the B. O. administration.
Will the U.S. ever have a God fearing House, Senate and President to put this before the American public as an amendment to our Constitution? Not that we should need an amendment, there’s no Constitutional clause that allows it to begin with except the one the liberals made up.
Will we ever have a God fearing public that will demand it?
Ping
Excellent news. Bravo.
Now I can log off for awhile with some good news...for a change.
“Will the U.S. ever have a God fearing House, Senate and President...”
“Will we ever have a God fearing public that will demand it”
THAT is hard to tell.
I look for Congress and the UN to implement sanctions.
The USA is just where the head offices of these "pro abortion groups" are, in the UN building. All those NGO's are just fronts for the new world order, run by these eviro-mental retards who want to "save the planet" by killing off the human population, among other ambitions such as killing off human morality.
Well there IS civilization in the world.
Right On!!
UNICEF - United Nations International Child Extermination Fund
Well Amnesty, it's about time you got off your useless "blame America for everything" arses, and started campaigning against the Islamic blood cult that is the root cause of ALL they things you whine about, isn't it?
"Women" (which are twelve year old brides in Muhammadan lands) and "girls" (who are 9 year old brides in Muhammadan lands) wouldn't be at risk of maternal deaths in the first place if they weren't forced to marry and raped at such a early age by their Jihadi "husbands".
So why don't you go protest in front of Mosks condemming the pedophile prophet and his pal Al (satan) who made child brides and rape "lawful and good"?
Oh that's right, Amnesty international is full of Mohammadans, fat chance that they'll speak out about their evil blood cult.
I believe D.R. is predominantly Catholic. This is great news. Maybe this will spread around the globe.
I’ll be heading there next week. I’ll thank the people I run into.
And if the United States led in this manner?
Pathetic... The White House is against the death penalty for criminals, but for the death penalty for unborn children... Go figure.
I’ve never understood that dichotomy... Being for the death penalty, but against abortion and being against the death penalty and for abortion.
You’re either for life or you’re not.
That’s is the one thing I respect about the the catholic church. They will protest the death of a prisoner, just as vehemently as they protest the death of a child.
Life is life.
Viva! Republica Dominicano
I wouldn't stand in the way of your respect, because you're reading the Church's long-range attitude correctly. Considering that it's run by mere mortals, the Church follows principle to an extraordinary degree. In 1940, Einstein observed how the Catholic Church stood up to the Nazis during the 1930s when the world's fashionable thinkers were busy trying to appease Hitler:
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
I should mention that official Church teaching has never held that capital punishment is inherently wrong. From the earliest times, it has taught that society has the right to defend itself through the death penalty. Even John Paul II, who found the death penalty troubling, concluded the same thing in his encyclicals. He contended that in modern times, the occasions where only the death penalty will suffice to defend society are few.
The Vatican City itself, as an independent state, has its own penal law. Until 1969, its "menu" of criminal sanctions included the death penalty.
Inducing the abortion of an unborn child, who is by definition innocent, is of course never justified in the Church's eyes.
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