{"id":3246,"date":"2008-02-17T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T14:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/in-spain-its-harder-to-cut-down-a-tree-than-commit-an-abortion.html"},"modified":"2008-02-17T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-17T14:49:00","slug":"in-spain-its-harder-to-cut-down-a-tree-than-commit-an-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/in-spain-its-harder-to-cut-down-a-tree-than-commit-an-abortion.html","title":{"rendered":"“In Spain, it’s harder to cut down a tree than commit an abortion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an eye-opener from across the Atlantic, courtesy the Associated Press<\/a>: <\/p>\n

After same-sex marriage and fast-track divorce, Spain’s social revolution has hit a roadblock — abortion.<\/p>\n

The abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalized in 1985. But abortion has become too easy to obtain, say its opponents, and lately it has flared into a dispute so bitter it prompted abortion clinics to go on strike for five days.<\/p>\n

Staffers have been arrested and 25 women who underwent abortions have been interrogated. At one point thousands of women swarmed a Madrid courthouse, shouting that they too had terminated a pregnancy, and demanding a change in the law to provide abortion on demand.<\/p>\n

At issue is a crackdown on five facilities accused of performing abortions in violation of the law that permits them in the first 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks in case of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychiatrist certifies that the mother’s physical or mental health is endangered.<\/p>\n

Politically, it’s a delicate matter. The Socialists, seeking re-election March 9, have quietly dropped a pledge of abortion on demand up to 12 or 14 weeks into a pregnancy, as exists in many other European countries, for fear of alienating centrist voters. The opposition conservatives, also seeking centrist support, are shying away from promising a complete ban as their allies in the church demand.<\/p>\n

But for some, Spain’s abortion law is already much too liberal. ”In Spain, it is harder to cut down a tree illegally than it is to commit an abortion,” Josep Miro i Ardevol, who leads a group called e-Cristians, wrote on its Web site.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check the link for more. I wonder how many people in this country would have similar sentiments?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an eye-opener from across the Atlantic, courtesy the Associated Press: After same-sex marriage and fast-track divorce, Spain’s social revolution has hit a roadblock — abortion. The abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalized in 1985. But abortion has become too easy to obtain, say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\n"In Spain, it's harder to cut down a tree than commit an abortion" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/in-spain-its-harder-to-cut-down-a-tree-than-commit-an-abortion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""In Spain, it's harder to cut down a tree than commit an abortion" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s an eye-opener from across the Atlantic, courtesy the Associated Press: After same-sex marriage and fast-track divorce, Spain’s social revolution has hit a roadblock — abortion. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}