Catholics for a Free Choice, a pro-abortion group with no connection to the Church, is seeking to include the concept in a political declaration of heads of state and government, who meet Sept. 14-16 in New York.
The Holy See’s warning was communicated by a letter of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, addressed to the members of the Argentine bishops’ conference.
The letter was made public by the secretary-general of that episcopate, Bishop Sergio Fenoy, through the Catholic news agency AICA.
«As you will observe, the concept of ‘reproductive health’ is very ambiguous,» the letter stated. «It was used in the Beijing and Cairo conferences to include abortion as a means of family planning. …
«The expression ‘reproductive health’ inserted in the mentioned Declaration of the Summit of the Millennium+5 made reference only to the meaning given by the Cairo and Beijing documents and, therefore, would be unacceptable for the Holy See.»
Cardinal Sodano urged the nuncio to relay the warning carefully to episcopal conference members.
