FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leslie Palma
917-639-7039
TITUSVILLE, FL -- Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone today issued a statement thanking Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State for the Vatican, for his pro-life witness at the United Nations Summit of the Future that took place in New York City this week.
“Cardinal Parolin restated that ‘The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension” of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” Pavone said. “For years now, U.N. agencies and conferences try to include abortion as a human right, where no such international right exists.”
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Sunday approved a “Pact for the Future” to tackle poverty, violent conflicts and issues including climate change and artificial intelligence. But while the pact does not specifically mention abortion, one of its goals is to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.”
Cardinal Parolin’s statement reasserts that the Vatican does not interpret “reproductive rights” to mean abortion.
“Regarding the terms ‘sexual and reproductive health’ and ‘reproductive rights, the Holy See considers these terms as applying to a holistic concept of health, which embrace, each in their own way, the person in the entirety of his or her personality, mind and body. … The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension of these terms.”
The Vatican’s full statement can be found here.