"Legalising abortion has no place in African Cultures and traditions," says one of Africa's highest ranking Catholic prelates. John Cardinal Njue, the Catholic archbishop of Nairobi, Kenya, has issued a pastoral letter calling abortion a "foreign concept" and blasting the government for attempting to legalise it in Kenya.
He also warned Catholic politicians of the spiritual consequences of supporting the bill.
Addressing Kenyan Catholics and "people of good will," Cardinal Njue urged the Kenyan people to "stand firm against this evil of abortion."
He wrote, "Abortion is not merely the removal of some tissue from a woman's body. Abortion is not the removal of a living 'thing' that would become human if it were allowed to remain inside the woman's body. Abortion is the destruction of an unborn baby."
He called upon his flock to speak out against the bill, drafted by a coalition of radical feminist organisations, writing, "Say and shout it aloud that: Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy by killing the unborn and defenceless child ... Abortion is killing an innocent person and God says, 'You shall not kill'."
The Cardinal made the Church's position on abortion clear for those who would support it legislatively: "A person who procures an abortion, where the effect follows, incurs an automatic excommunication' (Canon 1398). This includes any human person who knowingly has the abortion and anyone who assists willingly and directly, such as the doctor, the nurse or others.
"Let it be understood that in the final analysis excommunication is the choice of the individual; it is not the choice of the Church."
To those in public life, Cardinal Njue said it is better to give up a political career than support the killing of children in the womb.
Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) is sending a letter of thanks and support to the cardinal for his stand and is encouraging pro-life people around the world to do the same.
SPUC has identified Kenya's draft Reproductive Health and Rights bill as another attempt at eugenic population control in Africa.
If it is approved, the bill will make access to abortion easily available to minors without any legal requirement of parental knowledge or consent. It would legalise abortion in cases of rape and incest, creating a legislated system of discrimination against people based on the way they were conceived, SPUC says.
It would also allow eugenic abortion for those babies thought to be at risk of "severe physical or mental abnormality" or "extreme social deprivation." This would effectively create a legal "lethal prejudice" against the disabled and poor says SPUC.
The Cardinal's letter continued, "The womb of any mother is supposed to be the safest place where the child, even just conceived, should feel most secure and loved. There is no way we shall support a society that destroys the unborn who have been created as a gratuitous gift from God to the community."
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(Source: CT)