Thursday, April 9, 2009

Controversial Abortion Powerpoint in Classroom Sparks More Law Reformation Issues

The level of controversy amongst Spain's Catholic residents, and the Prime Minister is at a steady increase. In the past month or so there have been multiple protests, on both sides of the issue, and in particular a north Spain parochial school, Purísima Concepción y Santa María Micaela school, located in Logroño (northern Spain). The teacher, Sister Maria Victoria Vindel, according to an article, showed her 15 year old students a PowerPoint presentation which contained graphic images of aborted children. The images provided by Sister Vindel were classified by the regional government, which is run by Popular Party, as "inappropriate" and could "constitute "moral aggression"". This uproar is just one of the several ways the Catholic community is rejecting prime minister Zapatero's abortion law reformation. The article, 'Spanish Leader Picks Fight With Catholic Church' has a bit of a negative undertone, but directly applies to the situation at hand. Although there appears to be an even distribution of opinion to each side, Spain being dominantly Catholic, this continued topic of reformation has spiked some upset among those against and for it. According to the article, members of some of the Catholic brotherhoods who are participants in the processions for Holy Week have pinned white ribbons on their robes, with tiny footprints on it as a sign of protest. Bishops are beginning to reflect their opinion and their strong advisement to not adhere to the new reformation in their sermon's at Sunday mass celebrations. Zapatero's push for this reformation is unfortunately going to cause a lot of issues in the country he needs to keep and continue to gain favoritism in. It is thought by some that the reformation of the law may keep women from late term abortions, but there have been cases before that show this would mend this issue.

2 comments:

  1. It is horrible that the prime minister would just censor citizens. Its even worse that he would try to pass an abortion reform. I'm amazed at how some countries can just do this with or without the support of key groups in the population. Would the fact that Spain is becoming predominantly Muslim affect how this reform is being passed?

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  2. To be honest, with the articles I have read, I haven't even read mention of this. I would think it would considering the dominant religion that is always associated with Spain is Catholicism. Putting religious views on the subject matter aside, I feel as though just the politics of the situation - the way this is being handled and the disregard being shown would change my views.

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