Mercedes Aroz

Madrid, Spain, Nov 26, 2008 / 02:46 pm (CNA).- During the “Catholics and Public Life” congress in Spain this week, former senator Mercedes Aroz, who a year ago announced her conversion to the Catholic faith and departure from the Socialist Party of Catalonia, called for the abolition of abortion in Spain to bring about true progress in the advancement of human rights.

Aroz, who was elected handily to the Senate in 2004, underscored that “Spanish society today is a secularized society similar to the rest of Western Europe in which God is no longer the universal point of reference.”  This change “has led to a crisis of moral values” and the loss of a moral compass for individuals, and “unease in the cultural in general,” she explained.

However, she acknowledged that “Catholicism continues to be relatively in the majority and a Catholic-based culture continues to subsist.  Therefore favorable conditions exist for Christianity to flourish again.”

“We need to put forth the abolition of abortion for what it is: a progressive objective, the advancement of civilization, as the legal recognition of human rights, and their expansion is the fruit of progress of the human being in the understanding of his reality and his dignity as a person,” she said.

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