Indian Cardinal calls for UN moratorium on abortion

Cardinal Oswald Garacia, archbishop of Mumbai, endorsed a United Nations moratorium on abortion, adding his voice to others calling for a cessation of abortion and provisions for the unborn in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights following a similar moratorium on the death penalty, reports John Connolly, LifeSiteNews.com.

"I wholeheartedly welcome and support a moratorium on abortion," said Cardinal Garacia in a statement to AsiaNews. "It is an utmost necessity that the international community is sensitized to creating and building a culture of life. Abortion is a horrendous evil and abortion has become preeminent threats to human dignity because it directly attacks life itself. It must be noted that abortion is a crime committed against those who are weakest and most defenceless, those who are genuinely 'the poorest of the poor.'"

"Abortion is the death of true freedom, to claim the right to abortion or claim the right to be pro-choice, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others," Garacia writes. "This culture of abortion unfortunately is being created all over the world. They allow it legally in the sense they allow it meaning no punishment is given for those who commit abortions. People then presume that this is morally and ethically correct which is not true. It is the taking of life. How many millions are just being killed because of this whole culture! Once again I reiterate, that I whole heartedly welcome a moratorium on abortion, and each person must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem. Abortion is never a morally tolerable option and is radically incompatible with the love of God and the dignity of the human person created in His image. It is always a grave act of violence against a woman and her unborn child."

"I think that after the happy outcome regarding the death penalty that logically the theme of abortion follow and that we ask for a moratorium, or at least stimulate, and reawaken people's consciences to help them realise that a child in the mothers womb is a human being and that this suppression is inevitably the suppression of a human being," said Cardinal Camillo Ruini during an interview on December 31.

Cardinal Ruini also called on Italian authorities to implement a moratorium on abortion, and a bill has been introduced into the Italian legislature to limit the number and type of abortions in Italy.

The movement for a UN moratorium on abortion was spearheaded by an Italian journalist, Giuliano Ferrara, director of the daily newspaper "Foglio." He hopes that this will generate a movement that will organise a demonstration of 5 million in Rome next summer and push for the right to be born to be inserted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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[01/09/2008]

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