FAFCE: strongly critical letter to Macron over “right to abortion” in EU Charter. “Intrinsic contradictions”

The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) has sent a critical letter to French President Emmanuel Macron in response to his address to the European Parliament yesterday, in which he called for an update of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights to include the right to abortion. The letter, signed by FAFCE President Vincenzo Bassi and FAFCE Honorary President Antoine Renard, points to “intrinsic contradictions” in the proposal put forward by President Macron. “While on the one hand you talk about the ‘existential rule of law of our Europe’, on the other you propose that a practice which is illegal in some EU Member States should be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights”. Furthermore, as Mr Macron pointed out, the Charter enshrines “the abolition of the death penalty”, yet introducing abortion would mean “recognizing as a fundamental right a practice considered by many of our fellow citizens to be deadly violence against our most vulnerable members”. Likewise, this would be “in clear contradiction with the Charter itself which, in its first two articles, enshrines the inviolability of human dignity and the right to life”. “All those who, in line with science, believe that human life begins at conception run the risk of seeing their freedom restricted”, FAFCE warns. Then an appeal to Mr Macron that “this European semester is not exploited for political and ideological gains” but work is carried out “for the common good of our peoples, our families and our children, who are the future of Europe”. A note accompanying the letter recalls that FAFCE had “already lamented that the family is not among the priorities of the French Presidency of the EU. The position taken by the French president is further evidence to this”.
Valentina Bombelli