CNA Staff, Jun 24, 2020 / 03:25 pm (CNA).- The president of the leading Catholic women’s organization in Germany has declared her support for “reproductive rights” – including, “as a last, terrible resort” abortion – and for an initiative supported by the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Maria Flachsbarth has been president of the German Catholic Women’s Federation (KDFB) since 2011. The Catholic mother of two and member of parliament for the Christian Democratic Union is also a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics, the lay organization coordinating the controversial “Synodal Process” with the German bishops’ conference.
Speaking to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, on June 19, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development – for which Flachsbarth works as Parliamentary State Secretary – confirmed that Flachsbarth is committed to her support for “She Decides,” an initiative supported by Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood international affiliates form the largest global network of abortion providers.
The spokesperson praised Planned Parenthood, saying the organization has made “a major contribution to reducing the high maternal mortality rate in developing countries through medical support for mothers and children during pregnancy and birth.”
In Flachsbarth’s view, the SheDecides initiative is committed to “protecting girls and women from suffering, enabling them to live in health and dignity and offering them opportunities for education and a self-determined life,” the spokesperson also told CNA Deutsch.
This also includes access to “basic sexual and reproductive health services and self-determination over one’s own body.”
The spokesperson added that SheDecides aims to protect women from the consequences of “unsafe abortions.”
“For this purpose, access to a medically safe abortion is offered under the laws and regulations applicable in the country, as well as help with complications after an unsafe abortion,” she said.
“As a member of the German Bundestag, as Parliamentary State Secretary and also in my honorary office as President of the KDFB, I have always been committed to the protection of life, especially in the particularly sensitive phases at the very beginning and at the very end. Abortion is never a means of family planning. In individual cases it can be a last, terrible resort”, Flachsbarth told CNA Deutsch through the spokeswoman.
A similarly worded statement published June 19 on her website reiterated Flachsbarth’s position.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (No. 2271).
Pope Francis has repeatedly decried abortion and other attacks against human life, including in his enclycical Laudato si. In 2018 he compared the abortion of sick or disabled children to a “Nazi mentality.”
In April 2019, the Holy See’s representative to the United Nations told the UN Commission on Population and Development that the insistence on a “right to abortion” detracted from the commission’s efforts to address the real needs of mothers and children.
“Suggesting that reproductive health includes a right to abortion explicitly violates the language of the ICPD, defies moral and legal standards within domestic legislations and divides efforts to address the real needs of mothers and children, especially those yet unborn,” said Archbishop Bernardito Auza.
In September 2019, representatives of 19 countries, including the Holy See and the United States, told the United Nations that there is no “international right to abortion” and that “ambiguous” terms such as “sexual and reproductive health” should be removed from official documents.
Flachsbarth’s support for Planned Parenthood has been criticized by other party members of the Christian Democratic Union. In an interview with the newspaper Tagespost, CDU politician Hubert Hüppe accused Flachsbarth of being a “protagonist of the abortion lobby”.
Hüppe also called on the German bishops to intervene, saying they had a duty to do so. Otherwise, the bishops would themselves lose credibility, should the “open support” by the KDFB president remain without consequences.
To date, no German bishop has publicly commented.
The Central Committee of German Catholics’ president, Thomas Sternberg – another CDU politician – told CNA Deutsch June 22 that he was “in complete agreement” with Flachsbarth, and that, in fact, they reject abortion, despite Flachsbarth’s support for the SheDecides initiative and for Planned Parenthood.
He said: “From my point of view, this debate makes it clear how far away we are from the general conviction and view that abortion is about killing people. The way it is discussed as a purely women’s rights issue is a sad sign of a lack of awareness of the value of unborn life.”
Sternberg, who in 2018 spoke out against a proposed relaxation of Germany’s abortion laws, said there is “no contradiction” between his position and Flachsbarth’s.
“The ZdK has always vehemently stood up for the protection of life. In Germany we have a legal regulation according to which abortion without medical or criminological indication is illegal. But we also know that we can only protect the life of the unborn children together with an unintentionally pregnant mother or a mother in distress and not against her,” Sternberg said
To protect life, he said, it is necessary to offer “encouragement for responsible parenthood” and concrete help, he added.
Under a 1995 law, women seeking an abortion in Germany must seek counseling, after which can they receive a certificate enabling them to obtain an abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
In 1999, the Vatican ordered the German bishops to withdraw from the state counselling system over concerns that it compromised the Catholic Church’s unequivocal opposition to abortion. At the time, the Church ran more than 200 of the country’s 1,600 pregnancy counseling centres.
Sternberg told CNA Deutsch that the counseling regulation provided “protection” for unborn life.
He emphasized that both he and his predecessors had supported this regulation “even in the face of a strong social and political headwind,” “because we want to prevent abortions and can prevent them in many cases.”
He said: “At the same time we know that unfortunately abortion cannot be prevented in every crisis pregnancy case — Maria Flachsbarth speaks of this when she says that abortion can be a ‘last, terrible way out’ for a woman in individual cases. However, it is absolutely clear to us that abortion is not one of the means of family planning.”
Through education and information, he said, “women must be empowered to be able to decide on the number of children they will have and also on their future life.”
SheDecides was founded by Dutch politician Lilianne Ploumen in response to President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to reinstate the Mexico City policy. Under that policy, foreign non-governmental organizations may not receive U.S. federal funding if they perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning.
SheDecides has won support from at least 60 countries, as well as dozens of NGOs. Within six months the initiative received pledges worth $300 million.
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Why does it take a bishop from Spain?
Where are the Florida mitre’d’s?….dominus flevit
Thinking the same. Where are the Bishops, Catholic politicians promote abortion and the Bishops say nothing, it is a disgrace.
The Spanish bishop is woefully misinformed. Invoking Jesus Christ in support of abortion is blasphemy, not sacrilege.
Blasphemy was my first thought too Paul.
Considering that Florida receives more lightning strikes than any other state in the nation , Mr. Biden was acting a mite dangerously.
🙂
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: blasphemy. noun. blas·phe·my ˈblas-fə-mē plural blasphemies. : the crime of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or a religion and its doctrines and writings and especially God as perceived by Christianity and Christian doctrines and writings.
If Biden’s contempt for the Sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost” is not blasphemy, then the definition and his gesture have no meaning.
Why just condemn Biden? We should condemn every supposed Catholic who has voted for this man who loves the idea of killing unborn babies.
Yes Deacon Edward. And every member of the Catholic clergy who have enabled him to get to this level of moral error.
I’ve been on conversational Catholic forums in which people said that Pres. Biden’s Sign of the Cross was just a “meaningless gesture” with no religious intent. E.g., it’s the bottom of the ninth, the score is tied, there are 2 outs, the bases are loaded, and a pinch hitter is sent in and now has two strikes–before the next pitch, some people will fold their hands as though in prayer and/or make the Sign of the Cross. It could be a legitimate prayer (especially if it’s a game involving children or teens). But it’s probably just a meaningless gesture–even non-Catholics sometimes get into the habit of making a Sign of the Cross to express extreme stress and emotion. Of course, it’s also possible that Pres. Biden was trying to express his support of abortion, in which case it really is a sacrilege. He and other prominent pro-abortion Catholics in the U.S. should be universally denied Holy Communion by ALL priests, not just the traditional or the conservative priests. And the U.S. bishops should make a public announcement that support of abortion at any stage is a grave sin and encourage all Catholics and non-Catholic Christians to get involved in organizations that help women and children to escape from poverty, addictions, sexual slavery, mental and physical abuse, violence and gang life, etc. into a life where their health care needs are met, and they can get a good education that leads to a well-paying job that meets their needs and gives them joy.
About your baseball analogy and things that might just happen…
In 1970 I was visiting family in Eugene, Oregon, and the home professional baseball team was down by three runs. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, with two outs and the final pitch count was 3-2. We were not at the game, but on a short walk that took us to the top of the hill beyond the fence and far beyond the first base line. From there we glanced back and could see the field just long enough to witness the final pitch of the game…
A four-run home run over the center field fence! The Lord in never late, but He’s never early either. And, the batter was probably Hispanic.
The Spanish Bishop is spot on. God bless him. One thing never mentioned about Trump is that his wife is deeply devoted to Blessed Mary. Hopefully, Blessed Mary will help Trump eliminate his own personal immoralities.
We should all start with taking a fearless moral inventory of our own lives. Then, when we’ve eliminated every vestige of sin in our lives, we can take stock of President Trump’s moral failings and advise him from the vantage point of our own perfection.
Is this the same wife who within a few days headlined at Mar-a-Lago a million-dollar fundraiser for all-homosexual Log Cabin Republicans and who received its highest honor? Such hypocrisy and mendacity are nauseating and constitute acts of sacrilege and blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin Mary.
And most miserably unhappy bishops in this country refuse to rise out of their own self imposed fettered, squalid gutters! SHAME! These are our leaders and this is where they have led us!
They are afraid! And not for nothing kind of wimpy to stand up!
I, for one, am gratified by the Spanish bishop’s statement. We are often given the impression that we should write off the Church in Europe. And this bishop is a relatively young 63. May his tribe increase.
He thought he was at Mass….period….it made no sense in light of what was being said by the woman cheerleader. The man has very little left past his old programming running on auto. No debasement too great if it means maintaining power for the regime, and his wife apparently quite ok with it.
I’d thinking Dr. Biden either went into the union with that understanding, or had it firmly impressed upon her since.
I wish I had the same confidence in divine forgiveness for my sins as Mr. Biden appears to have in being forgiven his.