Pope makes strong, silent anti-abortion statement
18 Aug 2014 4:26 AM IST
But he made a strong, albeit silent anti-abortion statement on Saturday during his visit to South Korea, stopping to pray at a monument for aborted babies in a community dedicated to caring for people with the sort of severe genetic disabilities that are often used to justify abortions.
Francis bowed his head in prayer before the monument, a garden strewn with simple white wooden crosses and spoke with an anti-abortion activist with no arms and no legs. He also spent an hour
blessing dozens of disabled Koreans who live in the Kkottongnae community, founded by a priest in
the 1970s to take in disabled children and adults abandoned by their families. There is still tremendous stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities in South Korea, and supporters of the Kkottongnae community argue that if it didn’t take these people in, no one would.
Francis caressed and hugged each of the residents of the community, young and old, and seemed genuinely pleased when one of the elderly residents with cerebral palsy, Kim Inja Cecilia, presented him with an origami crane she folded with her feet.
South Korea banned abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. The constitutional court upheld the ban in 2012.
Activists, however, say authorities turned a blind eye to abortions for decades until cracking down in recent years due to South Korea’s low birthrate, one of the lowest in the world. During the 1970s and 1980s, South Korea’s government saw big families as an obstacle to economic growth and encouraged families to have no more than two children. Francis referred to the ‘culture of death’ afflicting South Korea during his homily on Friday.
But generally, he has shied away from making headline-grabbing anti-abortion statements, much to the dismay of conservative Catholics who had been emboldened by the frequent denunciations of
abortion by previous popes.
Francis bowed his head in prayer before the monument, a garden strewn with simple white wooden crosses and spoke with an anti-abortion activist with no arms and no legs. He also spent an hour
blessing dozens of disabled Koreans who live in the Kkottongnae community, founded by a priest in
the 1970s to take in disabled children and adults abandoned by their families. There is still tremendous stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities in South Korea, and supporters of the Kkottongnae community argue that if it didn’t take these people in, no one would.
Francis caressed and hugged each of the residents of the community, young and old, and seemed genuinely pleased when one of the elderly residents with cerebral palsy, Kim Inja Cecilia, presented him with an origami crane she folded with her feet.
South Korea banned abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. The constitutional court upheld the ban in 2012.
Activists, however, say authorities turned a blind eye to abortions for decades until cracking down in recent years due to South Korea’s low birthrate, one of the lowest in the world. During the 1970s and 1980s, South Korea’s government saw big families as an obstacle to economic growth and encouraged families to have no more than two children. Francis referred to the ‘culture of death’ afflicting South Korea during his homily on Friday.
But generally, he has shied away from making headline-grabbing anti-abortion statements, much to the dismay of conservative Catholics who had been emboldened by the frequent denunciations of
abortion by previous popes.
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