The global hand of the human extermination movement has taken hold of Portugal, a small country that has long had a low birthrate. Only four nations in Europe offer strong protection in law for unborn children: Ireland, Portugal, Poland, and Malta. The European Union and the pro-abortion organizations it generously funds, along with the United Nations and others, have been trying for decades to get these EU members to conform to their abortion orthodoxy. Now, in the wake of a failed February referendum, they are on the verge of succeeding in one of those nations.
Financial Coercion
At the same time, the European Union is threatening to withhold aid from poor Nicaragua if she does not repeal her pro-life law — a prime example of cultural imperialism. Abortion everywhere, for everyone is an EU motto.
The Portuguese referendum legalizing abortion-on-demand in the first 10 weeks received the approval of 59% of voters and the disapproval of only 41%. Yet, since so few voters showed up to vote — turnout was only 44% — the referendum failed. No matter. Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates says he will use the referendum to justify what he has long wanted to do anyway, and get a law through parliament legalizing abortion in the first 10 weeks. This unwise leader plans to do so by July.
In this 90th anniversary of the appearance of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal may be about to turn her back on the Catholic Faith and life itself. The legalization of abortion would only be another symptom of Portugal’s terminal decline, another signpost on her way to eternal oblivion. Portugal’s birthrate dropped below replacement level over 20 years ago and now stands at a meager 1.5 children per woman. An astonishing 30% of Portuguese will be 65 or over by 2050, way up from 17% today — and that assumes that Portugal’s birthrate will start rising by 2015, a questionable prediction. More likely, it will continue downward, making Portugal’s median age 54 by 2050 (right now, it’s an already-high 38).
So, setting moral principle aside, is this the time to legalize abortions of convenience in Portugal? Portuguese law already allows abortions for the health of the mother and for rape. The birthrate is suicidally low. Portuguese women can and do pop over the border to Spain for abortions, anyway. What rational reason can there he for making abortion-on-demand a priority in this dying land?
Improve Support for Mothers
Some “yes” voters for the referendum may have been confused by the government’s publicity campaign, which emphasized ending unsafe illegal abortions that sometimes result in the mother’s death. The government argued that since these abortions occur anyway, they may as well he safely regulated and taxed. And some pro-legalization campaigners argued that legalization would reduce the number of abortions, though that has been proven historically false.
“We believe that those that voted ‘yes’ to relax the abortion laws were in fact voting against illegal abortions, we in the Church support that,” said Carlos Azevedo, Church spokesman in Portugal. “What we want to see is improved education among the young and improved support for mothers.”
Yet it is hard to believe that with a strong pro-life campaign in Portugal spreading the word, most of the 59% who voted yes don’t favor liberalizing abortion laws. But it’s possible that enough people were confused and enough too lazy to vote that only a minority of all Portuguese voters really favors what the referendum does.
Sadly, the supposedly pro-life leader of the primary opposition party in Portugal, Luis Marques Mendes of the Social Democratic Party, has already caved, saying he will not fight abortion legalization now that the referendum received a majority of those who voted. Instead, in the mantra of conservative politicians everywhere, he wants to extract a small concession or two from the Left. “The will of the Portuguese must be respected,” he said. “It’s important to include in the final version of the new law a compulsory period of counseling for the woman who is thinking of having an abortion.”
Portugal’s president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, is close to Marques Mendes and could veto a new law. Yet the main political opposition in parliament is giving up before the parliamentary battle has even begun.
But there is still hope. Pro-lifers in Portugal organized to fight the referendum and can remain organized to fight the bill in parliament. Hopefully, they will understand the reality that in this fallen world, politicians respond weakly to appeals based on principle — “Defend life!” — and more strongly to threats — “Vote against this or we’ll vote against you.”
The Left never gives up. Portugal voted down an abortion referendum in 1998, so they tried again this year. They did the same with divorce in Ireland until they won there. We must take the same attitude, remembering the promise made at Fatima: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Cultural Imperialism
Last October, Nicaragua’s congress unanimously passed a bill outlawing all abortions in that small Central American nation. Nicaragua’s then-president signed it into law, and the current president supports it. In fact, the current president announced his support for the law before the election, and the Nicaraguan people apparently liked what they heard. The law closed a loophole tot “therapeutic abortions” that was, of course, being used to justify abortions of all kinds — even though, with modern technology, there is never a need for direct abortion to save a mother’s life.
This display of republican self-government and due process for the protection of unborn children in a country with a recent history of dictatorship and lack of respect for human life pleases many. Even those who don’t share Nicaraguans’ opposition to abortion could react by admiring such a democratic process and respecting this Latin people’s beliefs about children and motherhood.
After all, Western leftists talk incessantly about respecting other cultures, the self-determination of all peoples, the importance of Western nations refraining from meddling in the internal affairs of small countries, the evils of imperialism including economic and cultural imperialism, and the great undesirability of the world’s ongoing cultural homogenization. So, surely, in the face of such a unanimous democratic decision taken by the elected representatives of the Nicaraguan people based on traditional Latin American culture, Western leftists are content to leave Nicaragua alone over this issue?
Law Under Attack
Of course not. Leftists are the biggest economic and cultural imperialists of the modern world, determined to impose their values upon every single people and subgroup of people on the planet.
Earlier this month, Marc Litvine, EU liaison to Nicaragua, said that access to abortion “is linked to aid programs against poverty and to the rights of women” and said “we hope that the new government will he capable of opening the debate and discussing it outside the passion of the electoral season,” according to the Catholic News Agency. He labeled the decision of the Nicaraguan congress “hurried” and added, “That’s where I see one of the contradictions of the new government; it claims to he progressive, very modern, and it is going backwards because for us [the pro-life law] is a step back.”
It might he step back for a Europe that is fast self-exterminating through very low birthrates, but perhaps not for a nation that wishes to survive beyond this century. Nicaragua’s total fertility rate has been dropping but is still at a decent 3.3 children per woman. However, the United Nations Population Division predicts that Nicaragua’s birthrate will continue to drop and go below replacement level in 20 years. What could be more truly progressive than taking steps now to endure the survival of your people, especially when it is so small — only 5.5 million live in this sparsely populated nation?
Abortion More Money
Litvine later claimed he was not threatening Nicaragua on behalf of the EU. But the mention of linkage between abortion and aid programs seemed clear enough.
In fact, German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul could hardly have been more clear when she said Nov. 17, 2006, after ambassadors from European countries met with Nicaragua’s president-elect, “The international donor community made it unequivocally clear to Daniel Ortega that there will he consequences for their future cooperation with his country if the bill is not amended.”
If the name of Daniel Ortega sounds familiar, it’s because he was the anti-American Marxist president of Nicaragua in the 1980s. After spending years out of office, he returned to the Catholic. Church, embraced the pro-life cause, and won election again last fall. “It’s funny, but when Ortega was a godless little communist he was much more popular with the Euro-Left than he is now that he’s outlawed baby-killing. Funny that!” posted Oliver McCarthy of London on the web this week.
In December, after Nicaragua’s pro-life law was signed, EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner responded to a questioner deploring Nicaragua’s infringement of abortion “rights:” “The Commission shares an expressed concern related to therapeutic abortion. The Commission and States Parties [individual EU governments] have adopted an active position in this matter.”
Abortion: A Woman’s Right
Last month, Wieczorek-Zeul demanded that Nicaragua’s new president repeal the new law and even endorsed civil organizations’ efforts to get Nicaraguan courts to discard the unanimous will of the Nicaraguan congress. She said, “We support these organizations in their demand, together with other international donors and the United Nations.”
Yes, other international donors and the UN itself are pressuring Nicaragua, too. What is this but cultural imperialism, backed up by economic power?
So far, Ortega seems to be holding firm, and currently enjoys a 61% approval rating from the Nicaraguan people. Wouldn’t it be great if the Bush Administration offered to make up for any foreign aid lost due to Nicaragua’s drive to save her children’s lives? What a line way to heal the old split between the newly moderate Ortega and his supporters, and our own USA.
Europeans may he hypocritical about opposing imperialism, but not about abortion. They want it at home and abroad, and pursue whatever means they can to achieve it. It’s up to us to stop them.
