Posted on 08/01/2009 8:21:10 AM PDT by markomalley
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's drug regulation agency has authorized the use of the abortion pill despite protests from the Roman Catholic church which threatens to excommunicate doctors who prescribe the drug and patients who use it.
(snip)
QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE
The Vatican, which opposes all forms of abortion in the belief that human life is sacred from the point of conception, says the pill is no different from surgical abortion.
"There will be excommunication for the doctor, the woman and anyone who encourages its use," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, emeritus president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the pope's top expert on bioethical issues.
"First abortion was legalized to stop it being clandestine, but now doctors are washing their hands of it and transferring the burden of conscience to women," he told reporters.
(snip)
It remains to be seen how many doctors will prescribe it since, according to the health ministry report, about 70 percent of Italian doctors are "conscientious objectors" who refuse to carry out abortions in their clinics or hospitals.
Italy has a low abortion rate compared to Britain, France and the United States and it has fallen steadily for decades. In 2008 there were 121,406 terminations, down 4.1 percent on the previous year and 48.3 percent less than the 1982 peak.
Silvio Viale, a Turin gynecologist who has campaigned for the pill to be authorized, said the AIFA decision was "a victory for Italian women, who from today have more freedom and choice."
"But I am sorry it has come 20 years late. If such there had been such an innovative drug for something like the prostate I doubt we would have had to wait so long," said Viale.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Two comments: #1 -- such a direct statement toward other countries' politicians would be nice
#2 -- it will be interesting to see if the practice will live up to the rhetoric
"But I am sorry it has come 20 years late. If such there had been such an innovative drug for something like the prostate I doubt we would have had to wait so long," said Viale.
Comment: For once, just once, I would love to see a comment in the MSM challenging the obvious logical error in statements like the above. (How one equates a prostrate condition with pregnancy is utterly beyond me)
I wonder who will live in formerly-Italy when all the Italians are gone.
So we can expect excommunication for Pelosi, Kennedy, and Kerry? Hmmm?
I doubt the Church will carry out the excommunication threat there or here. But I wish they would.
Excommunication involving abortion is ipso-facto, meaning, "by the very fact of committing the act". No public announcement is necessary. However, public announcement of excommunication does serve the purpose of affirmation dire warnings to others, especially in the case of politicians who make laws affecting all.
Too bad that the Catholic Church still gives Pelosi, Kennedy, and Kerry communion at mass (even the papal mass, back in 2008). I guess their ipso-facto excommunication isn’t so well known by the priests and the pope?
It will be just a small number of us vs. the whole world.
The Pope and the Church is very clear about pro-abort politician should NOT receive Holy Communion. Of course the Pope himself did not give Holy Communion to Kerry or Dodd. They received from an unknown priest and a deacon at the Papal Mass in 2008.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08041707.html
I agree the priest and deacon should not give them Holy Communion.
Many of the clergy are suffering from a dangerous disease called PC.
But isn't it amazing that "progressives" will put toxic chemicals in their own bodies --- and their wives', girlfiends', and daughters' bodies --- that they wouldn't put in their compost piles. And they'll oppose chemical poisoning of other species while using this human pesticide on their own progeny.
A couple centuries from now, if the human race lives so long, they will look back at this and shudder, hardly able to believe that people could so doltishly fumble their splendid powers to make love and make life --- could abuse those powers so imbecilically.
Fewer children is exactly what Italy does NOT need.
The Italians have lost faith, and not only that, even the memory of faith that was enough to save Dr. Faust.
The people in Italy are no different than the people here. There are those that are ardently pro-life, and there are those who just aren't. One of the people I was with told of a friend who was appalled that a neighbor of hers took her teenage daughter to have her child killed. And this was near Rome where they all go to church every Sunday.
This isn't going to go away and so long as there is human nature in humans, actively trying to avoid responsibility of this sort is going to happen. That doesn't make it right, but it is going to happen.
Who would have thought 80 years ago that the remaining remnants of Catholicism would be found in South America and the Philippines and that Italy, France, Spain and the rest of the West would fall into apostasy.
Don’t forget Africa. Europe has been gripped by a profound pessimism since the “Great War.” Leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler tried to restore their faith in the State if not in Christ by offering them goals that trescend their small lives. Now they only demand to be left to die in peace.
Their only hope is the hope of the Jews, which is that believers continue to have children even if the unbelievers will not.
Wow... I don’t know where to start.
True.
And it's not like they weren't warned about this. Pius IX discussed the dangers as part of his famous Quanta Cura, while Leo XIII dedicated an entire encyclical about the impact of Socialism in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris. While popes 100 years earlier warned about the impact of secret societies, part of which is linked in with the spread of socialism through Europe and much of the world.
How can it surprise any of us that a fundamental disrespect for life should follow once people abandon the God of the Universe for the god of social progress?
Frankly, Europe deserves what they get...as does anyplace else that follows Europe's example. Hopefully, as a people, they return to God before that comes to pass.
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