.- The new Spanish law which could make abortions a "right" for young girls was deemed senseless by the new head of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The man leading the government that passed the law, President Zapatero, is "incapable of understanding what a right is," he said.
In an interview with Il Consultente Re, an Italian Catholic monthly, the new Pontifical Academy for Life president Msgr. Ignacio Carrasco addressed the legislation recently passed in Spain under the administration of President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
The law, allowing girls 16 years-old and above to abort their children up to the 14th week without obtaining parental permission, was passed by the Zapatero government on July 5 of this year.
Msgr. Carrasco called the law "senseless, absolutely senseless" and added that "it corresponds to Zapatero's mentality.
"He has a fixed idea, the question of rights," the monsignor asserted. "Everything presented to him as a right, he promotes; but he's uncapable of understanding what a right is."
The head of the Academy for Life noted that the law has not yet been enacted, despite the Spanish government's vote to pass it into law. The law is now being examined as to its constitutionality by the Spanish Constitutional Court.
"The point," said Msgr. Carrasco, "is that the new law understands abortion as a right: if it is, a woman can decide to do what she wants, without consulting or explaining her choice to anyone.
"The new law, I repeat, is an expression of the incapacity to understand what a right is. The problem is serious, not only in Spain."
He explained that this decision illustrates an increasing tendency to "subtlely introduce the doctrine of absolute individual rights in the doctor-patient relationship: the doctor with his ethics and directions begins to give way to the judge ... "
It's a development, he said, that "for me is very unnerving, as it would also mean the twisting of medicine."
