By Hazel Healy
MADRID—On Dec. 30, Archbishop Antonio María Rouco performed two miracles. On a bright winter’s day, Madrid’s cardinal convened a million people in Plaza Colón to defend the Christian family. They stood in a sea of colored balloons, with children and babies in tow, as he delivered the second: Pope Benedict XVI live by video link-up from the Vatican.
Then, in between songs and prayers, Spain’s bishops lined up to attack the center-left Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. They spoke of a “great social menace” created by a secular administration and its support for abortion as well as gay marriage and “express divorce.”
All this happened, as writer José Manuel Vidal noted blithely in the Spanish daily El Mundo, less than three months before the March 9 general election. Polls currently show Zapatero’s party holding a narrow lead but facing an electorate already concerned about stagnant wages, a decline in Spain’s housing market and growing inflation.
Although abortion was legalized 22 years ago, in 2008 abortion clinics report they are under unprecedented attack from “fundamentalist Catholics in league with the far right.” It appears that a resurgence of conservatism within the Catholic Church has boosted the confidence of anti-abortion activists, who are now pressing home their advantage.
One thing all sides can agree on is that the current law is a mess. Spain decriminalized abortion in 1985, 10 years after the death of the longtime fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Abortion is only permitted in certain cases — up to 12 weeks for women who have been raped or up to 22 weeks if a fetus is malformed.
However there is no time limit if there is a risk to the mother’s physical or mental health. This clause provides grounds for 97 percent of Spain’s abortions. Public health bodies are wary of the law’s ambiguity and avoid performing abortions, which are left to private clinics.
Late last year clinics were rocked by scandal. Raids in Barcelona resulted in the arrests of Dr. Carlos Morín and staff, who were allegedly filmed offering to perform an abortion for a woman who was seven months pregnant.
Justa Montero, member of the Feminist Assembly, argues that the anti-abortion lobby then exploited Morin’s arrest. “The events in Barcelona — although we have yet to know the outcome of the cases — have displaced the debate to the far right,” she said.
The Association of Private Clinics (ACAI) has accused the government of doing nothing to protect patients and the clinics, which have faced an upsurge in angry protests and “systematic harassment” by local government inspectors. Clinics have been vandalized and medical staff attacked by pro-life protesters.
Cities like Madrid are particularly vulnerable, as they are governed by the conservative opposition, which supports the Church’s position on abortion. Two Madrid clinics have been closed down and another is under investigation after anti-choice pressure groups lodged accusations of illegal abortions.
"NOT A SINGLE STEP BACK"
Since Zapatero was elected in 2004, his opponents in the Catholic Church have aggressively re-politicized religion. Anew collection of conservative organizations has gained momentum, the strongest ultra-right group being the “Kikos”, named after their founder Kiko Argüello, who enjoy excellent relations with the Vatican.
The Socialist government is angry with the outspoken bishops. Arecent Church pronouncement, which warned voters against supporting parties that promote abortion and gay marriage, prompted a bitter accusation that the Vatican is seeking to sway the vote. Zapatero announced “not a single step back” on progressive laws, but quietly dropped a 2004 election promise to liberal¬ize abortion laws.
However, ACAI is also mobilizing. Aweek-long strike in January was followed by a “self-incrimination” campaign in which 5,000 people signed forms admitting to illegal “voluntary” abortions (either directly or in collusion). The clinics are pushing for a law allowing voluntary abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, in line with the rest of Europe.
On Jan. 23, some 50 women’s organizations convened a noisy rally to defend abortion in Madrid’s Puerta de Sol. The 3,000 demonstrators were in no doubt over who was behind the assault on reproductive rights. Barbed chants included ones like “The bishops need to get a sex life ... with adults.”
“We won all these rights,” said Conny Rodriguez, a 65-year-old retired bingo hall attendant. “And now the bishops want to change the government — they are trying to take us back to the Franco era when priests, doctors and the mayors ruled.
“But,” she added confidently, “we are not going to let them.”
Photo — Supporters of Spain’s embattled abortions clinics march in Madrid. Photo by Hazel Healy
Comments
Christianity is very SIMPLE....
homosexual sex = scratch of an itch
lesbian sex = scratch of an itch
sex using anti-conception tools = scratch of an itch
masturbation = scratch of an itch
sex out of wedlock = irresponsible (immaturity?) scratch of an itch (adultery or what have you)
sex within marriage without the intention to give life = selfish scratch of an itch
sex used for procreation within marriage = an act to give life (marriage)
PLEASE DONT CHANGE WHAT MARRIAGE IS ALL ABOUT... IF YOU GUYS WANT TO SCRATCH YOUR ITCH DO IT WITHOUT CHAGING WHAT THE WEDLOCK WAS MEANT TO PROTECT.... THE CHILD, YOU, ME... SOCIETY... US.
I can't agree more with this posting - the spectrum of sexuality is all just a scratch of an itch. What we need is a strong Pope who is not afraid of speaking his conservative mind and a real conservative president to boot.
God bless the Spanish people in their attempt to roll back progress.
In Spain's elections, Socialists win with liberal appeal
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0311/p07s03-wogn.html
Prime Minister Zapatero's party is likely to build on the sweeping reforms of the last four years, which have riled conservatives and the Roman Catholic church.
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Madrid
Aided by a near-record turnout, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the Socialist Party won the Spanish national elections – suggesting further changes toward diversity in a young democracy whose older generations cut their teeth on the Franco dictatorship and the moral authority of the Roman Catholic church.
The Socialist victory suggests Mr. Zapatero's party has broken out of the longtime secondary status it has labored under, despite winning the last election in 2004.
Now, say analysts, the Socialists' more liberal appeal to young people, women, and immigrants – along with its contemporary style of campaigning – must be taken seriously by the conservative Popular Party (PP), which ran on an older message of Spanish traditionalism and antipathy toward the feisty Basque and Catalonia regions.
"This is a breakout by the Socialists, the maturing of a party," says Jacobo Ponte, a well-known political blogger for MSN in Madrid.
Significantly, as well, the Socialists scored the first-ever majority win by a national party in Catalonia and the Basque area – regions where local parties seeking greater autonomy or independence have long been most influential. The Socialist scores in these two most vibrant economies in Spain – whose capitals are Barcelona and Bilbao – suggest that the party's policies of gradually greater autonomy, much criticized by the Popular Party, may have gained traction.
The victory in influential Catalonia was especially striking, with political commentator Fernando Onega saying in the daily La Vanguardia, "Catalonia has chosen to influence central politics, instead of packing its bags to leave Spain."
Zapatero disproves lightweight label
This year's campaign was bitterly fought, often nasty, and punctuated by a political assassination in the Basque region attributed to the terrorist group ETA, days before the vote. But despite PP criticism of Zapatero as soft on terror, the attack failed to unseat his party – a fate the PP suffered in the last national elections.
In 2004 Zapatero's Socialist party barely defeated the ruling Popular Party days after the March 11 Madrid train bombings – the worst terrorist attack in Spanish history. Mariano Rajoy, leader of the PP, who were expected to win handily, insisted the attack was by Basque's ETA, even amid mounting evidence that Islamist terrorists had hit Spain for its participation in a US-led war in Iraq – increasingly unpopular in Spain, as it was throughout Europe.
The defeat in 2004 was never fully lived down by Mr. Rajoy, who often campaigned this year as if Zapatero was an amateur bent on destroying all that was right about Spain. In heated debates between the two last week – the first in 15 years – Rajoy repeatedly said to Zapatero, "Let me tell you how the Spanish people actually think."
Late Sunday night in Madrid the youthful Zapatero, flanked by his ministers and wife, told an ecstatic crowd he planned to "govern for everybody, considering above all those who do not have everything ... govern with women's aspirations in mind, for fulfilling the hopes of youth, and for the elderly – govern with a firm hand but with a hand held out."
Sunday's turnout was 75.3 percent, only slightly lower than the '04 figure of 77.2 percent – the highest in modern Spanish history.
Spain, with 17 regions, has famously complex political alignments; since 2000, government has relied on alliances or pacts to survive. Yet the Socialists' victory of 169 seats – a modest improvement since 2004 but still seven seats short of a majority in the 350-seat parliament – suggest Zapatero will be less dependent on partners.
The outcome also suggests that Spain, which has many small parties, is moving toward a greater two-party system – even as basic splits between right and left are deepening and becoming more contentious.
More serious church-state clash?
Sunday's election may prefigure, for example, a more serious clash between the Socialist government and the powerful Catholic church here, analysts say.
During the campaign, the church at times openly supported the Popular Party – mobilizing priests and huge crowds in the streets, at one point stating that Zapatero's liberal agenda to allow gay marriage, more equitable divorce laws, and an opening of the long-suppressed history of killings under the Franco regime represented a "violation of human rights and the Spanish family."
Given that Spanish taxpayers fund huge segments of the church, the Socialists may well reexamine the funding and legal relationship between church and state, something Zapatero suggested earlier this year.
"I think you are going to see a greater confrontation between the government and the church," says Madrid political blogger Mr. Ponte.
In recent weeks the Popular Party tried to frame the elections as a referendum on pocketbook issues, serious recent job losses in the construction sector, and higher costs of food and living.
The Popular Party did indeed pick up new seats, topping 40 percent for the first time; yet neither the tough message on economics or the framing of immigration in negative terms worked.
Finance minister Pedro Solbes pointed out that economic doldrums are being experienced across Europe, and cited a recent United Nations report showing that Spanish growth rates remain quite high.
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