Abortion mistaken for a right - CEI

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 29 - In a message published Friday ahead of the World Day for Consecrated Life celebrated on February 2, the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) said abortion had wrongfully been perceived as a right, following the approval of Italy's 194 Law that legalized the practice in 1978.
    In a message quoting the Vatican document Dignitas Infinita, CEI said the law had intended "to eliminate illegal abortions".
    However, over time, it had "generated in the conscience of many the scarce or absent perception of the gravity" of abortion, "turning it into a 'right'", while a human being is "always sacred and sacrosanct".
    Italian bishops also stigmatized the fact that there are "too few children and too many domestic animals" in families - a warning often reiterated by Pope Francis in the past.
    CEI then criticized surrogacy, stating that women cannot be exploited as "containers of someone else's children".
    The message spoke about "an increasingly frequent phenomenon - the desire to become parents at any cost, which affects couples or singles for whom assisted reproductive technologies offer the possibility of overcoming any biological limitation to obtain a child anyway, beyond any moral evaluation".
    The Senate last month gave final approval to a bill making surrogacy a universal crime, even if it is carried out abroad by Italian citizens.
    In Italy, surrogacy has been illegal since 2004.
    The measure makes gestation for others punishable by law even if committed abroad, but only for Italian citizens. (ANSA).