The Baby War (or fetus war, or embryo war, or sperm and egg war...)

This week the Catholic Church threatened to excommunicate Spanish politicians for their vote legalizing abortion in Spain up to 14 weeks. At the same time, back in Mexico the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco, has admitted to entering into agreements with the PRI to go after both abortion and contraception in Mexico.

Let's remember that just a generation ago under Echeverria the Catholic bishops tacitly supported the birth control option for the poor. Heck, the PRI even offered birth control in the CONASUPO subsidized markets for a time. For the nation that gave the world the birth control pill and pretty freely embraced it in the late '70s it is a real whiplash situation to see even the PRI working against contraception and abortion.

However, I was interested to see a study by a Columbia University public health professor (Jennifer Hirsch) in which she demonstrates that rural Mexican women (the group that was the most resistant or misinformed about contraception in the 1970s) is using contraception and finding that it meshes perfectly well for them and their Catholicism. If the PRI and the PAN are gunning to make this a big political issue in 2012 it may be more of a flop than a flyer if Hirsch's study holds true.

At any rate this seems like a full court push against contraception and abortion in Latin America, as one of my colleagues here in Texas got a full sermon on abortion and contraception in Mexico in his East Texas parish on Miguel Pro's feast day a couple weeks ago.

The Sins of Sister Forcades

In this corner, a Catalonian nun with degrees in public health and theology. In the other corner, The Vatican.

Earlier this week The Vatican called on pro-abortion, anti-flu vaccination Benedictine nun Teresa Forcades to get in line with church doctrine. While the church may not be so upset about her attack on the World Health Organization decision to change the definition of pandemic (they dropped the requirement to have massive casualties), they are upset about her position on abortion.

"God has placed the life of the fetus while it is not viable in the hands of its mother [...] Because of this intimate link of the mother and the child while it is not viable outside of her, the decision to abort is inseparable from the mother's self-determination, from her personal freedom. This intimate link between two lives means that the life of the child cannot be saved against the wishes of the mother without violating her liberty." Read more here...

So why mention a Spanish nun on here? I'm starting to notice Forcades more and more on Latin America related sites, and she has "gone viral" (pun intended) on YouTube for her attack on vaccination - taking her squarely into the lives of Latin Americans that deal with BOTH of the public health issues, government health programs ... and their faith.