Despite massive turnout, march virtually ignored by national media
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent
LIMA, March 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - About 55,000 people in the cities of Lima, Arequipa el Corso, and Piura marched to express their opposition to the distribution of the abortion-inducing "morning after pill" in Peru last week.
However, the Peruvian media virtually ignored the march, and reported that merely "hundreds" had participated, according to organizer complaints.
The protests were held against Peru's health minister, Oscar Ugarte, who has approved the distribution the "morning after pill" in direct defiance of a Supreme Court order issued late last year.
Participants from over one hundred organizations participated in the marches, chanting slogans such as "Ugarte, Ugarte, your mother didn't want to abort you," and "Mr. Congressman, don't be an abortionist," according to the Catholic news service ACI Prensa.
In response to the public outcry against the distribution of the pill, Ugarte held a conference with pro-abortion medical experts on March 29.
The participants echoed Ugarte's claim that the pill doesn't cause abortions, using a definition of "abortion" that regards pregnancy as beginning when the zygote implants in the mother's uterine wall. However, the zygote, which is the earliest stage of a human life, is already alive before implantation, and is killed by the drug.
Although the health ministry currently has no supplies of the pill on hand to distribute, Ugarte has announced that he will obtain them by July, and begin the distribution process.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, recently commented that Ugarte should "go home" because "a minister who dedicates himself to distribute pills that kill embryos, is not a minister of health."
Previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Peruvian Executive Defies Supreme Court to Distribute Deadly 'Morning After Pill'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032401.html
Certainly you would like to know that "Tradición y Acción" (the Peruvian TFP) had an important participation of members and supporters in the abovementioned March.
ReplyDeleteWe will send you some pictures.
May Our Lady give to all the ANF staff, a blessed Holy Week and Easter
Alejandro Ezcurra