Church out for control again

The Spanish Socialist Party have been on a roll in recent years, pushing through more and more social freedoms and civil rights as reforms on Gay Marriage and fast-track divorces. One of such social minefields remains abortion and the perpetually annoying Pro-Life movement, and now, to try and influence people back into good ol' Conservative Catholic values (*twitch*), the Roman Catholic Church has launched a widescale anti-abortion campaign throughout Spain. (Why don't we ever hear about Pro-Choice campaigns ...?)

"We want to speak for those that have no voice as yet," Spanish Bishops Conference spokesman Jose Antonio Martinez Camino told Spanish National Radio on Tuesday, a day after launching the drive.

The campaign features billboards showing a toddler beside an Iberian lynx, one of the most highly protected species in Spain. A slogan says, "What about me? Protect My Life!"

The usual inaccurate and manipulative tactics, I see. Equating a toddler to an unborn zygote, a ball of cells with less worth than a ball of earwax ... yeah.

Oddly, this has also drawn ire from many scientists and researchers across Spain. You'd think these would be precisely the ones who would be for the stupid thing rather than against it.

Coinciding with the church protest, hundreds of scientists and researchers issued a statement Tuesday rejecting the government's plans and supporting for the right to life.

"Abortion, being an attack on life in the first weeks of development, is nobody's right," said Dr. Monica Lopez Barahona, one of the signatories and director of Vidacord, a biomedical company that stores stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

No, it is one person's right: the mother's. She has every right in the fucking world to do whatever the hell she wants to a zygote or embryo, and flushing the stupid thing down a toilet is actually recommended and encouraged if she doesn't want to see it develop into a human fetus. But then, can't expect you hardcore Conservatives to know that.

It's not exactly like the Socialists' plans on reforming the anti-abortion law(s) are overly liberal or asinine, either.

It comes two weeks after the Socialist government revealed plans to reform the 1985 abortion law, including allowing the practice on demand up to 14 weeks.

The government plans to approve the reform by year's end. Its also includes allowing abortion up to 22 weeks if a doctor certifies a serious threat to the health of the mother or fetal malformation.

Beyond 22 weeks, it would be allowed only when doctors detect fetal malformation they deem incompatible with life.

The current law allows abortion up to 12 weeks in cases of rape and 22 weeks in cases of fetal malformation. It also allows abortion at any stage if a doctor certifies a woman's physical or mental health would be at risk if the pregnancy proceeded.

That all sounds perfectly reasonable, even normal, to me. But then I'm one of those annoyingly liberal Pro-Choice types ...