.- Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata is urging Argentineans to study the positions of political candidates on issues such as IVF and euthanasia before voting in the general election on Oct. 23.
“These issues are not indifferent, but rather so crucial that in some sense the future layout of Argentinean society depends on them,” the archbishop said during his television program Keys to a Better World. “And for us Christians, they are non-negotiable.”
Archbishop Aguer warned the country's citizens of current proposals to legalize abortion, euthanasia, artificial procreation and sex change operations.
In the case of abortion, he said, supporters of the procedure want to expand the two exceptions permitted under the law which currently allow abortion only in all cases of rape and endangerment to the life of the mother. The archbishop said that abortion supporters aim to broaden the exception to “not only her physical but also her psychological and social health as well.”
“Lawmakers are also threatening to pass a measure called gender identity. It would be more accurate to call it sex change,” he added. “This is one of the extreme aspects of gender ideology which has permeated the social sciences, it is insinuated in educational material and dominates many legislative analyses.”
Archbishop Aguer called the measure an “attack against the natural order” which includes “a prejudice against the biological dimension of sexuality.”
“It replaces the concept of sex with that of gender and turns this fact of personal identity into an option that one chooses at will,” he said.
“There ought to be broad and extensive debates about all these issues. It is a shame that these issues are not discussed in the campaign, because we have to elect our lawmakers, and how do we know who to elect? How do we know what they think about these fundamental issues?” he asked.
The archbishop stressed the need for citizens to learn each candidate’s positions, saying, “if lawmakers are the representative of the people, then the people need to know who these lawmakers really are, what they think, what laws they are going to propose. Otherwise they will hardly be representatives.”
