| Subject: Re: The Pope's View: Control Women and Increase World Starvation |
Author:
XOX
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Date Posted: 10:10:01 04/19/05 Tue
In reply to:
Ignatius
's message, "兒童是人類的希望" on 09:26:07 04/19/05 Tue
The Catholic view on abortion and birth control assures a world of starving, unwanted children, but fortunately wise people are ignoring the Pope. Even within the Catholic Church more reasonable minds are speaking out.
One of the Church's lay panels, the Pontifical Academy of Science, released a study by Italian Bishops conference saying "There is a need to contain births in order to avoid creating the insoluble problem that could arise if we were to renounce our responsibility to future generations." Increases in the human life span and advances in medical care "have made it unthinkable," the report says, "to sustain indefinitely a birth rate that notably exceeds the level of two children per couple."
The study, which took two years, was prepared by eight lay experts of the Pontifical Academy, a group of more than 80 scientists of different religions and nationalities.
The Pope was infuriated by the report, especially since birth control options would "enhance the status of Third World women." We know how the Church looks at women and their rights!
Yet with millions dying of starvation all over the world, the official Vatican position is there is no urgency of population problems and it opposes abortion options for women and birth control. This is very sad and hopefully this position will be ignored by World bodies more concerning about saving and preserving born life, rather than supporting, what many believe is a very immoral religious doctrine.
The Catholic political agenda on abortion may backfire. The biggest joke was when Bishop James McHugh threatened that the U.S. position on abortion would offer a "powerful incentive to American Catholics to walk away from the Democratic Party." The problem is the ruling Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican has lost touch with all but the most conservative of its members in the Western democracies. Its influence is greatest where poverty and ignorance is greatest - in the Third World countries, in Latin America.
Reasonable people can disagree on abortion. On the issue of contraception, however, the Vatican is bonkers. If you really want to do away with unwanted pregnancies. To attempt to deny people access to effective contraception, then condemn the abortions inspired by the resulting pregnancies seems bizarre.
And a good many Catholics around the world agree. In an open letter to the pope, Catholics Speak Out, an umbrella group for progressive Catholic organizations, stated: "Because of the human pain caused by the Vatican opposition to contraception, because such opposition severely worsens our global crisis of population and resources and because the majority of good Catholics - after long and prayerful reflection - have rejected it, we say to you simply: On the issue of contraception, you are wrong." So much for papal infallibility.
The pope's message doesn't even sell in Italy, home of the Vatican. For some time now, Italy has had the most liberal abortion laws in Western Europe. The result? Between 1982 and 1992, the number of legal abortions per year fell from 234,800 to 155,200. And the reason was contraception. Italy has not only slowed its population growth; it has reversed it.
It really comes down to whether you're willing to let women make decisions that control their own lives. Little wonder that the pope had to make common cause with fundamentalist Islamic regimes like Iran on the abortion issue in the UN conference. Whatever their differences, religious fundamentalists share a view of the world that places women in an inferior position, one in which they have little to say in decision making. It's a good deal for the boy's clubs that make up the hierarchy of the fundamentalist religions and Catholicism.
The fact is the Vatican continues to exercise its influence in the Third World, where it still does have influence, in the direction of reaction is nothing short of a tragedy.
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