Sense and sensibility
FREDDY DIAS
Pope Francis on January 22 tweeted, “I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable” in support of the 41st edition of the ‘March for Life’ in Washington, which was established to protest a 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide in the USA. Earlier, last September, the Pontiff denounced abortion as a symptom of today’s ‘throw-away culture’ while reiterating the Church’s traditional pro-life stand against the use of contraceptives as a measure to control the population.
The Catholic Church’s view is that much of the information published about demographic facts is open to question and is erroneous at times. Confronted by the caution this information requires, and the moral inadmissibility of population control programmes, the Church cannot remain silent or passive, but respond in a practical and positive way in accord with its mission of service to the family, the ‘sanctuary of life’. Christians must first of all promote the truth, especially when it is concealed by widely disseminated, but groundless cliches.
All are called to be vigilant about practices which do not respect the human person. In each tangible situation, how is the subject of the environment used to justify coercive population control? What about family policy? Does this policy assure true freedom for couples? Does anyone denounce cases where public or private, international or national organizations violate the rights of individuals or the family under the pretext of fallacious ‘population imperatives’? To what extent do international organizations put pressure on nations to influence them to subscribe to demographic containment policies, incompatible with the just sovereignty of nations?
Without question, there are certain necessary priorities. The following require rapid action:
• Attempts on the part of the ‘Population crisis ideology’ to influence international agencies and governments;
• Invoking environmental questions in an excessive or improper way to justify coercive population control;
• Invoking so-called new ‘women’s rights’ while underestimating the woman’s vocation to give life;
• Attempts to spread abortions and sterilization;
• Making devices against life such as the intra-uterine device (IUD) commonplace and distributing them;
• Violations of the absolute and inalienable rights of individuals and families;
• And more generally, the abuse of moral, intellectual and political power.
Christians and all people of goodwill should be informed to understand how populations differ in various conditions. They should develop a critical spirit regarding the population crisis ideology in the face of constant hammering by the media, which is used by many movements in favour of coercive population control. The tactics employed always make use of simplistic economic and demographic information and approximate projections. The Church vigourously encourages demographers, economists and political experts to carry out deeper scientific research on demographic realities and its diversity. They should provide a reasoned rejection of an ideology which is expressed as a fear of life and the future. This task also involves organizations working for justice and peace. On their part, all educational institutions are asked to include systematic and critical reflection on demographic realities in their programme. These efforts should be crowned with the resolve to provide objective information for opinion makers and the mass media.
Every governing authority, whether national, regional or local, owes it to itself to have a policy which enables families freely to assume their responsibilities in contemporary society and in the chain which links the generations. Furthermore, family policies should include the struggle against ‘contraceptive imperialism’ which the delegation of the Holy See already denounced in 1974 during the international conference on population held in Bucharest. This ‘contraceptive imperialism’ which violates the religious and cultural traditions of family life, does violence to the freedom of persons and couples and harms families and nations.
The Church also recommends the setting up of policies which assure respect of the woman’s specifically human character as a wife and as a mother. Women are the first to suffer psychologically and physically from campaigns inspired by the ideology of population fear. In this campaign, a false concept of the woman’s ‘reproductive health’ is used to promote different methods of contraception or abortion. These methods not only suppress the unborn child’s life, but also have grave repercussions on women’s health. This ideology of population fear puts the blame on the woman for being a mother, concealing the fact that through this maternal dimension she makes her irreplaceable contribution to society. The quality of a society is expressed in the respect it shows women. A society which shows contempt to welcoming a child and human life, holds the woman in contempt. The equal dignity of man and woman should be recognized. In particular, women must be able to express themselves and set up movements which help them take their place in society.
Organizations bent on controlling population by illicit means deliberately compromise Christians in their activities who may be invited to take part in programmes of action with rather general objectives, such as ‘development’ or ‘environment’, while in fact the real aim of these initiatives is to promote the ideology of the fear of life and an anti-life mentality. Christians must be ready to bear witness and prove themselves to be watchful, prudent and courageous.
