World Congress of Families Letter of Solidarity Read at Huge Pro-Life Rally in Madrid
Contact: Don Feder, 508-405-1337,
dfeder@rcn.com; The Howard Center For Family, Religion & Society, 815-964-5819
MEDIA ADVISORY, March 8 /
Christian Newswire/ -- Yesterday (March 7), huge pro-life demonstrations took place in over 100 cities to protest Spain's new abortion law, which went into effect on March 5. The new law allows abortion for children as young as 16 without parental consent, provides for abortion on demand up to the 14th week, up to the 22nd week if an abortionist certifies a health risk to the mother, and – in the case of fetal deformity and alleged threat to the mother's life – beyond the 22nd week.
In the course of a march that drew over half-a-million to Madrid, Ignacio Arsuaga, president of HazteOir.org (Make Yourself Heard) – one of the march's organizers – read a letter of solidarity from World Congress of Families to the Spanish pro-life movement. The letter is reproduced below.
Dear Friends,
The World Congress of Families (and our network of pro-family groups from more than 65 countries) is grateful for the opportunity to express our unequivocal support for the Spanish pro-life movement as it fights against a new law which will allow abortion on demand.
We sadly note that even under the current law, in 2008, abortion was the number-one cause of death in Spain, with more than 120,000 abortions taking place in the country that year – more than double the number in 1996 (51,000). All of this, while Spain faces the social and economic challenges of having one of the lowest birthrates in the world (as low as the birthrate in Greece).
We congratulate the Spanish citizens who will march for life in dozens of cities and towns on March 7. We applaud the work of "HazteOir.org" (a World Congress of Families Partner), "Derecho a Vivir", "Médicos por la Vida" and the "Plataforma La Vida Importa."
The commitment of the World Congress of Families here is reflected in our Mexico City Declaration of World Congress of Families III, which reads in part:
"Every human person has intrinsic value throughout the continuum of life from fertilization until natural death. Every human life is a gift to the person, the family and society. ...Taking innocent human life through abortion and euthanasia is a direct attack on human life and dignity."
Other World Congress of Families pro-life partners include the National Right to Life Committee, Priests for Life, Human Life International and Americans United for Life – as well as HazteOir.org.
Please accept our gratitude for your efforts, and know that World Congress of Families stands in solidarity with you to oppose the expansion of abortion in Spain.
God bless you in this noble cause.
Respectfully,
Larry Jacobs, Managing Director, World Congress of Families
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60 countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org). To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007). The fifth World Congress of Families was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 (www.worldcongress.nl and www.worldcongress.org).
