The Matic report was presented to the European Parliament by Croatian politician Predrag Fred Matic.
Newsdesk (June 19 2021 10:58, Gaudium Press) On June 17, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) expressed its firm opposition to the so-called Matic Report, presented to the European Parliament by Croatian politician Predrag Fred Matic, which will be debated on June 23 and voted on the following day. In fact, the adopted report would not be binding on the member states of the Union, but would of course have an influence on subsequent legislative development and before public opinion.
COMECE stipulates that it is “ethically untenable” to classify abortion as an “essential health service,” something that the Matic report does and which still contradicts the legislation of most of the 27 member countries of the union, some which, like Malta and Poland, have severely restrictive abortion laws.
“A medical intervention of such magnitude cannot and should not become a normal practice; its qualification as an essential service degrades the unborn child,” expressed the union’s bishops’ conferences.
The COMECE bishops ratified that life, including unborn life, should be respected and protected, and that abortion should not be a family planning method or part of ordinary health care.
The Matic report “does not reflect the tragedy and complexity of the situations in which mothers who plan to abort their unborn child find themselves.”
Referring to a document published by the German bishops in 1996, COMECE laments the ease with which “the independent right to life of the child is set aside and the fact that the fetus is not the property of the parents, but precisely in its defenselessness is entrusted to them alone is ignored.”
Another thorn
But the so-called Matic Report has another “thorn,” and that is its attacks on true freedom of conscience.
The COMECE bishops noted “with concern and regret that the draft resolution denies the fundamental right to conscientious objection, which is an emanation of freedom of conscience,” because the report in its text “regrets that (the) sometimes common practice in member states allows doctors, and on some occasions, entire medical institutions to refuse to provide health services on the basis of the so-called conscience clause, which leads to the refusal of abortion on grounds of religion or conscience, and which endangers the lives and rights of women.”
With information from Crux and Infocatolica