France: Bishops denounce the new advertising campaign for abortion
As part of the first “national action plan to facilitate access to termination of pregnancy,” health minister Marisol Touraine launched on September 28, 2015, a national campaign of information on abortion and “the right of women to dispose freely of their bodies.” The slogan of the campaign reads, “Abortion: my body, my choice, my right.”
On September 30th, the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) reminded the faithful of the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion. In a statement published on its website, the CEF declared that we must not consider “abortion as a merely incidental event in life but as a grave action.” Signed by Msgr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, spokesman for the bishops of France, the statement emphasizes that the current political situation is “hardly favorable to life.” “This government campaign in favour of abortion has appeared while the debates on health laws are ongoing and concerning measures will be proposed:” suppression of the notion of “distress” to justify the act, 100% reimbursement of the costs by the government, increase of the fees for terminating a pregnancy in order to support the clinics that offer it… In Le Parisien of September 30th, 2015, Bishop Michel Aupetit of Nanterre and member of the Family and Society Counsel of the CEF condemned “banalization” and deplored “220,000 abortions per year in France without the least decrease.”
(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – Famille Chretienne – Le Parisien – DICI no. 323, 22/10/15)
