Before the announcement of the Chilean Government of a new project to modify the until now in force abortion law in the country, the Episcopal Conference ruled with concern for the initiative and reiterated its position in defense of life to be born.
Within that framework, Mons. Juan Ignacio González, a member of the Permanent Committee of the Episcopal Conference of Chile, dialogued with Ewtn News On this topic “very transcendental for our homeland and for any country.”
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
In times of the presidency of Michelle Bachelet, in Chile the practice of abortion was regulated under three causes. “It was a hard battle and in the end it was imposed in Parliament, even with the vote of Christian people, abortion in three grounds, which obviously does not agree with any of them,” said the bishop of San Bernardo.
Already in 2024, the current President Gabriel Boric announced in the annual account of the Nation, that a legal abortion project was going to be presented, “that is, an abortion that no longer has causes”, but “only has a term.”
“Before sending this law to Parliament, three times the government tried, before the Comptroller, to modify the objection of consciousness, because what is happening in Chile is the same that happens in many parts, that there is an important amount of doctors – in some public hospitals, 100% of the doctors who work in this area – who are objectors of consciousness.”
Within that framework, in 2024 a regulation was presented that modifies Supreme Decree No. 67 of 2018 of the Ministry of Health, which approved the exercise of conscientious objection. “They wanted to change that regulation, that is, the difficulties are increased for conscientious objection in public and private establishments,” the prelate warned.
“We were studying that decree and then Minister Orellana, Minister of Health and Minister of Women, has indicated that a law that allows free abortion, that is, abortion without causal, legal until 12 weeks, which seems to us, as we have said in our statement, truly disrespect against the dignity of the human person, already in the clearest sense of the expression,” he said.
“If the previous law seemed very unfair to the one who is about to be born, for the dignity of the person, this is, I say, by way of mine, a legal and moral aberration.”
“There are enough reasons in science today to know that there is a human being there (in the womb) that is already conceived and that, therefore, he has the right to life,” he added.
“There have been very few cases in which the law of the three causes have been accepted,” said the bishop, “because the vast majority of professionals in Chile, of health, especially in the gyneco-obstractic sphere, think that there is never a cause ever enough to take away human life to the being that is in the maternal breast, it is for any cause. And that will be repeated again and we will repeat it again,” he insisted.
“As soon as this idea was launched on Friday, on Saturday we already launched our statement and asked everyone to pray for this, because it is an aberration and a thing that would do a country that needs a lot of peace. We are putting violence within the family, within the heart of a person, of a woman,” he lamented. “And precisely at the moment we are looking for unity, peace, concord in a nation with many divisions,” he said.
“That is why our position was always rail, but now we are facing legal abortion, that is, without causes. Any person can go to so many weeks to ask for a public hospital to make an abortion,” said Mons. González, anticipating that there will also be a series of rules so that hospitals publicly announce that abortions can be made there, and doctors will also have to declare publicly if they are objectors.
In short, we are facing “a state that is promoting abortion.”
“Not only that they accept it when it occurs, no, it directly promotes it with laws that we expect in God are not approved,” he said.
From the Catholic Church, the Bishop guaranteed, “we will give all the fights until we reach the Constitutional Court again,” and anticipated: “We have a lot of work ahead to defend the dignity of the human person and the weakest of all.”
“How is it possible that a country like ours, with a Christian roots, which has been founded on those values, has an authority that believes that it does well to the country to establish the possibility of removing the life of the one in the womb and in turn to take life in some way to which it is already done, in quotes, unusable?”, He stated, referring to abortion and euthanasia.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.