Church steps up war against reproductive health Bill and condoms

By Peter Orengo

The Church is united in condemning abortion as a grave evil.

The Catholic Church feels so strongly about the matter that it has launched a campaign against the Reproductive Health and Rights Bill that seeks to legalise abortion.

Cardinal John Njue recently led hundreds of Catholics into the streets to demonstrate against the Bill.

He says the bill should be opposed at all costs.

He describes abortion as murder and said it showed disrespect for life and human dignity.

"We do not condemn anybody, but the act. We hope lawmakers we sent to Parliament will confine themselves to making good not destructive laws such as legalising abortion," he says.

He claims foreigners were behind the move to have abortion legalised and were targeting young people. He says women were central in pushing through the issue.

Slaughter houses

"I appeal to young people not to be party to this anti-human dignity move, while you women, you should not allow your wombs to be turned into slaughterhouses," he says.

The church has threatened to cut links with organisations, which support abortion, or any lobby group associated with pro-abortion activities.

"If a thief is stealing and you stand far watching, does that position absolve you from the sin of stealing?" asks the Archbishop who is the Kenya Episcopal Conference chairman.

He says the church supported the stand by the Vatican calling for a boycott of Amnesty International operations because of its pro-abortion activities. "Abortion, whether legal or not kills babies, damages women, destroys families, degrades the medical profession, weakens nations and harms churches. That is why the common sense of history has always condemned it," the prelate says.

He said extinguish the first spark of life is as wrong as it is to destroy an infant, a teenager or an adult.

In a recent statement, the Catholic bishops say:

"It appears they (doctors) have completely abandoned the Hippocratic philosophy that mandates them to save life, and have instead taken a new measuring rod that they quickly justify."

The statement came in the wake of heightened campaigns for the legalisation of abortion worldwide.

As the 1980 statement of the National Council of Churches of Kenya Board of Social Responsibility put it:

"In the light of our conviction that the foetus has the right to live and develop as a member of the human family, we see abortion, the termination of life by the act of man, as a great moral evil."