In a significant interview with Zenit, Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life dismissed scientific arguments in favour of abortion. Monsignor Carrasco, previously chancellor of the Academy, has succeeded Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella as its president. (Picture, right, shows Professor Jerome Lejeune, the founding president, and Madame Lejeune, with Pope John Paul II who set up the Academy.)
Asked by Zenit "How can the embryo be defended from the scientific point of view?" Monsignor Carrasco replied:
"The problem is not scientific. The embryo is very well defended from that point of view. The problem is essentially of a socio-political and ideological nature and here scientific arguments don't count. It is a realm in which what counts is power and if the one who has power has no desire to dialogue or, at least to reflect somewhat, then he doesn't have much to do with other guidelines."This is fighting talk and it's good to hear. Monsignor Carrasco goes on to challenge politicians and political lobbyists to be tougher in their defence of the unborn:
" ... in the end what remains is the political weapon and the political weapon that we citizens have today is weak. Those who know politics can do much more and that is their very grave responsibility. Speaking in soccer language, lets say it's that they have the ball."Monsignor Carrasco ridicules the concept of the right to abortion, saying:
"I don't know when we will arrive at the right to steal but behind these laws what exists is a relativistic logic".And the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life boldly suggests that defenders of the unborn should change the language of the debate. In a poignant passage in the Zenit interview he says:
"One of the problems we have with regard to the embryo is that it isn't seen. Instead of embryo we should speak of a child who is in the initial phase of development. Because we cannot see him, he is in a situation of tremendous danger, at tremendous risk."Monsignor Carrasco announces in the interview that the Academy starts work this September studying post-abortion syndrome.
"The mission is not to demonstrate that this syndrome exists but to see what it is exactly and what it is like."Again, this is forthright language. I pray that the work of the Academy on post-abortion syndrome will help women and men worldwide and provide an invaluable new resource to bodies like Abortion Recovery Care and Helpline (ARCH) launched earlier this year in Britain.
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