DUBLIN, Ireland, MAY 12, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A policy of Ireland’s Catholic pregnancy counseling center has the archbishop of Dublin asking questions.
The controversial policy requires counselors to give interested clients information regarding organizations that can provide them with contact details of British abortion clinics.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin asked in March, at a meeting of the Irish bishops, for more information on the policy in light of «the overall principles of moral theology on cooperation and of the particular mission of Cura to provide alternatives to abortion,» reported the office of the archdiocese.
The policy, in effect for over a year, maintains the non-directive status of the clinic in that «Cura cannot, does not and will not provide telephone numbers for abortion clinics,» said Bishop John Fleming of Killala in a press statement Wednesday.
The policy in question, he said, has been discussed by the national board «in the context of discerning what course of action is most likely to help a woman with a crisis pregnancy to come to a decision not to have an abortion.»
Those opposing the policy claim that it compromises the pro-life stance of the center.
«Desperately trying to blur boundaries and position itself as simultaneously non-directive and pro-life, Cura has shown itself to be ethically muddled and intellectually vacuous,» wrote Patricia Casey in the Irish Independent this week.
Father Seamus Murphy, a lecturer in moral philosophy at Milltown Institute, explained that the word «cooperation» in the bishop’s statement was significant, reported the Irish Independent.
He said it was almost certainly a reference to the Church’s teaching against «cooperation with evil.»
The Jesuit priest explained: «There is no moral difference between telling somebody where they can obtain an abortion and telling somebody where she can find someone else who will tell her where to get an abortion.
«If it is wrong to give somebody the telephone number of an abortion clinic, then it is just as wrong to give somebody the number of another agency which will give that person the clinic’s number.»
