Venezuelan bishops call for humanitarian aid to be distributed

Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara / Archbishopric of Guadalajara Press

Mexico City Newsroom, Aug 2, 2022 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara recently spoke out about an alleged Eucharistic m… […]

Montevideo, Uruguay, Mar 28, 2019 / 12:38 am (CNA).- Nearly 70,000 people in Uruguay have presented signatures seeking to initiate the process of repealing a controversial transgender law passed last year.

The signatures – which totaled 69,360 – surpassed the 2 percent of registered voters necessary to initiate a referendum. They were presented to the nation’s Electoral Court on Monday.

Once the Electoral Court validates the signatures, it must call a pre-referendum, which must have the support of 25 percent of registered voters, or about 650,000 people. If that threshold is reached, the Electoral Court must call a mandatory referendum which will determine whether the law is repealed.

The signatures were collected by primary election candidate Carlos Iafigliola and congressman Álvaro Dastugue, both of the National Party.

Iafigliola said the law violates constitutional guarantees of equality by granting preferential treatment to transgender people.

In an interview with the local “This Voice is Mine” program, the candidate said that “the most serious issue is that this law is riddled with gender ideology, denies biology, denies that we are born male and female and says that sex is assigned to us at birth by convention.”

“I’m worried that the State will intrude into your home and tell the parents ‘you step aside and I’ll take charge of your child.’ For me this is very serious, it’s clearly violating parental authority,” he said.

“We don’t have anything against transgender people, against anybody, we respect everyone’s human dignity from their mother’s womb,” he said, but added that he believes the law “is a bad law – unjust, dangerous and unconstitutional.”

The Comprehensive Law on Transgender Persons was passed last October. It allows adults to change their name and sex in the State Civil Registry by applying through the Commission on Identity and Gender Change. If they later change their mind, they can reverse the decision five years later.

The law also provides access to state-funded surgical interventions and hormonal treatments “to adapt one’s body, including the genitalia, in accordance with one’s self-perceived gender identity, without the necessity of requiring judicial or administrative authorization.”

Children under 18 years of age will be able to change their name and sex in the official registry, and access surgical interventions and hormonal treatments with the consent of their parents or legal representative.

Minors who do not have the consent of their guardians can request representation by the State to obtain a judicial bypass, which can be granted if a court deems the hormonal treatments or other procedures to be in the best interest of the child.

In addition, the law provides for lifelong financial compensation for those persons who claim to have been victims of institutional violence related to their gender identity during the country’s military dictatorship from 1973 to 1985.

It also guarantees the transgender population with a 1 percent quota of the job vacancies in public administration and training programs given by the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training, as well as priority in accessing housing.

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San José, Costa Rica, Sep 4, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- Thousands participated in Saturday’s March for Life in the Costa Rican capital, urging that the president not sign a technical regulation for the performance of therapeutic abortion.

The Aug. 31 event was organized by Wake Up Costa Rica, Democracy in Action, and the Autonomous University of Central America.

Joining the march were politicians who urged president Carlos Alvarado not to sign the “Technical Norm for Non-Punishable Abortion” which would regulate Article 121 of the Criminal Code for the performance of therapeutic abortion in public and private clinics nationwide.

The government announced in early 2019 that the technical norm was being drafted by a team from the Department of Health and was going to be signed by the president during this year, though an exact date has not yet been set.

Pro-life groups however charged that the norm could be a window to allow abortion on demand.

Costa Rica’s Criminal Code considers abortion a crime, decriminalized only in cases of risk to the life of the mother. The Political Constitution states in Article 21 that “human life is inviolable.”

Carmen Chan, an opposition legislator of the New Republic Party, said while attending that march that “life is inviolable and no one has the right to put an end to it and our duty is to promote laws and policies that contribute to the improvement of living conditions for Costa Ricans.”

“But no, the direction and the defenses that this government has chosen are quite different, that’s why we’re on the front lines today as a people, defending the most basic right of all—the right to life – which goes hand in hand with all those social guarantees that correspond to the state to offer,” she said.

Democracy in Action posted on social media that the activity “ended in success” and that “it brought together thousands of people who marched peacefully.” They also said that for 2020 there will be “a lot more.”

“The pro-life people of Costa Rica took to the streets to demonstrate that we’re against abortion on demand, and we’re not going to remain silent in face of the pretensions of abortion advocates, that we’re going to defend life from conception and do so because we are indeed a people of pure life,” Democracy in Action added.

Days prior to the march, the Costa Rican bishops’ conference invited all citizens to participate, and thanked the secular organizations that “with great dedication and zeal for promoting the culture of life, have organized this event.”

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