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Thursday October 25, 2007

The National Assembly pays attention to the Catholic Church, but not to women

Trinidad Vásquez, MANAGUA, Nicaragua, October 11, 2006

The Nicaraguan Evangelical University (UENIC) and the majority of the traditional churches and institutions, such Taxi Heathrow Airport as the Council of Evangelical Churches Pro-Denominational Alliance (CEPAD) and the Inter-Ecclesial Center for Theological and Social Studies (CIEETS), did not take part in the march on October 6 against abortion in any form, convened by the Catholic Conference of Bishops.

The President of UENIC, Professor William González, announced that the Evangelical University has not yet taken an official position, because the Board of Directors and the university’s Assembly are yet to be consulted. González indicated that there are sectors within the university that support therapeutic abortion and others that are opposed.

Thousands of Catholics, including students from religious schools throughout the country, marched along the 3 kilometers between the cathedral and the National Assembly. The Evangelicals on the other hand, marched separately from the Catholics, beginning at the national stadium and ending on the west side of the Assembly.

At the end of the march, the Catholic Conference of Bishops and Evangelical leaders, Saturnino Cerrato and Cesar Augusto Marenco, presented 290,000 signatures to the members of the Presiding Council of the Assembly, petitioning that therapeutic abortion be removed from the Penal Code. The Bishop of Managua, Leopoldo Brenes, said that the civic march had the purpose of defending the right to life from the moment of conception. 

On behalf of the ultra-conservative Evangelicals, Pastor Roberto Rojas expressed that they supported the demand of the Catholic Church, because they also are in favor of life which is a gift of God. He added that in the world today many Herods have appeared, longing to kill lives that could be useful, and emphasized that life will conquer death because God is faithful to his children. Rojas gave a call to prayer that the minds and hearts of the legislators who seek to press the death button in the Assembly, be converted to being defenders of life

During the march itself, some pastors were asking themselves as to who had financed the cost of the transportation to bring so many thousands of marchers from practically all parts of the country.

Following the march, the President of the National Assembly, René Núñez, promised high standing representatives of the Catholic Church and of the participating Evangelical churches, that whatever kind of abortion, including therapeutic, permitted by the former Penal Code presently in force, would be penalized.

Meanwhile, thousands of women of the Autonomous Movement of Women marched yesterday to the National Assembly, to call the legislators’ attention to the matter. Juana Jimenez of the Network for Non-Violence Against Women said that if therapeutic abortion was penalized the rate of death of women giving birth would increase. Despite this march the Assembly did not give hearing to the women petitioning in favor of therapeutic abortion. To the contrary and according to graphic news media of Managua, Representative Wilfredo Navarro denounced the presence in the country of a number of NGO’s that “are making a business out of abortion,” but without giving names and evidence in support of his accusation.