ROME, JULY 5, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Slovakia and other countries awaiting membership in the European Union have severely criticized the European Parliament report that tries to impose abortion on them.
The vote on the resolution based on the report «leaves us perplexed, disappointed, and shows the distance that exists between our expectations and reality,» said a representative of the Slovakian Catholic bishops’ conference, Marian Gavenda.
The resolution «on sexual and reproductive rights,» presented by Belgian Socialist Anne van Lancker, which was approved on Wednesday, aims to impose abortion and the morning-after pill on nations.
In an article published by the Religious Information Service of the Italian episcopal conference, the Slovak aide explained that the Parliament’s report reveals «an abuse of the principles of subsidiarity and sovereignty, including in the relation with applicant countries, which seek to become part of the European Union.»
Gavenda also expressed a concern of Eastern European countries: «In the agenda of the European Union they find increasing space given to ideas and interests that are in open opposition to the culture of life.»
«We, peoples of Eastern Europe, who have suffered Communism and who are now in the era of post-Communism, do not want to give up our values to enter the European Union,» the episcopate’s aide emphasized.
