The Chilean government presented a bill that seeks to modify the current abortion legislation, eliminating the three grounds that limited its implementation and imposing only a limit of weeks of gestation to access the practice. Given this reality, the Catholic Church remains firm in the defense of life from conception.
Until now, and according to the law approved in 2017, during the Michelle Bachelet government, abortion is legal in Chile under three grounds: risk of life for pregnant women, fetal unfeasibility of lethal, and pregnancy result of rape. With the new project, the Gabriel Boric government intends that the causes be eliminated and that the practice is legal until 14 weeks of pregnancy.
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The Archbishop of Santiago and Primado de Chile, Cardinal Fernando Chomali, assured the reopens the temple of the assumption That the Church “is committed to the common good, and as we are committed to the common good, as life is interested because we are part of society,” he said, will do everything possible “to protect life from the moment of fertilization to natural death.”
In addition, in an exhibition on the subject, the also bioethics expert sentenced: “This project legitimizes violence as a way of resolving conflicts.”
“I do not deny that there are complex pregnancies, it is evident. But, how is the mood of a society measured? To the extent that he is able to take care of that person,” he said.
Within that framework, he supported his arguments with documents from the United Chile Foundation, which has been accompanying women with vulnerable pregnancy for 26 years. “The evidence is very clear: when the woman is welcomed and accompanied at that time, about 70% continue with her pregnancy.”
The Church and Help to Women
“I want to make it clear that our clear opposition to abortion is also accompanied by an action aimed at helping those women who have complex pregnancies. I think that is tremendously important,” he said, highlighting the action of institutions such as the Catholic University and the San José Foundation.
“The State has the obligation to protect the weakest, and by establishing a distinction based on the development stage, a hierarchy is introduced that allows some human beings to live and others not and it is an arbitrary hierarchy,” noticed Cardinal Chomali.
“Why would it be lawful at 14 weeks would have the contribution of the State and a day would be a crime? Who explains that to me?” “That is arbitrariness.”
“We are going to have arrogance, the truth, to decide that a person, a human being at a certain stage of gestation can live or cannot live. That someone has to explain why,” he insisted.
Consulted by the media On the subject, the Archbishop clarified: “We are in a democratic society and therefore the President has the right to raise legal abortion”, as well as “all instances of the homeland, including the Church of course, we have the right to say that it is a bad policy because it eliminates innocent human life, because the life of the weakest and evidently is evidently a serious attack against the first right that human beings is respected.
In favor of life
“We are always going to work for life under all circumstances,” he said.
Regarding participating in a debate, he clarified that it must be one that is based “on science, which is based on philosophy, which is based on ethics, theology and from that point of view abortion is the elimination of an innocent human being and we will never agree with that”.
“I am very aware that there are dramas that are terrible and know them. Horrous dramas with respect to women who feel alone and who are abandoned. I recognize that. But the mood of a society is measured in the ability to take care of the weakest. That is the point, nothing more,” he synthesized.
“Part of the care of democracy is to listen to these instances, and that people and that deputies, senators act in conscience and science. As simple as that,” he closed.
“An aberrant act”
Who also referred to the theme was Mons. Juan Ignacio González Errázuriz, Bishop of San Bernardo, in one of his last Homilies. “As you know, unfortunately for our homeland, this week the President of the Republic has introduced into Parliament a bill that allows abortion without any cause until 14 weeks.”
“It is an aberrant act to take life from a human being because yes. It can never be removed. We already discussed it this week and so many years ago, when at another time in history abortion was introduced into three causes, all of them debatable,” he recalled.
“But the authority has seen that the country has not reacted according to what they wanted, and in the 10 years of validity – or those who carry the abortion law – 6,000 abortions have been carried out throughout Chile,” said the prelate.
“One would say: ‘little'”, but “there are 6,000 people who have been deprived of their possibility of being on this land,” he lamented. “But now you want to introduce a law that directly allows you to act without any cause. And instructions are being issued so that in all public and private hospitals, there is no one can be denied that possibility,” he warned.
“Because what has happened, as explained on other occasions, is that in many parts 100% of the doctors dedicated to the issues of gynecology and obstetrics say: no, I object this law because it is a human right of all of us, never to be forced to act against our conscience. An authority that introduces a law of free abortion in a country like Chile, in any country, loses its moral legitimacy.
“And everyone has to act accordingly, in the defense of good,” he encouraged.
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.