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Friday, January 06, 2006

Religious Reactionaries are a Global Problem

Hi Folks,

This blog has concentrated mainly on American politics. However from time to time we mention political events in the brave world beyond our shores.

Europeans often think Americans are excessively religious, prudish and conservative. Well, it turns out Europe has its share of Christian Fundamentalists too. Slovakia, which recently joined the EU, has signed a treaty with the Vatican that allows Slovak medical care professionals to refuse abortion or even fertility treatments to women if those services conflict with the religious views of the health care professional in question.

There is a similar controversy here in the USA regarding pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions of which they disapprove on ideological/religious grounds. The article mentions similar treaties with a number of other EU member states but they don't go as far as the Slovak treaty.

Comments?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, look only as far as Italy  where the Chatolic Chruch just before Christmas told women to beware of marrying Muslim men (that sort of thing never works out you know).

Church officials in Italy have all but become a political party that is lamenting the number of abortions taking place in Italy and the negative birth rates. They are, as good Catholic conservatives, preaching against birth control (comparing it to Herod's massacre against the innocents), legalization of divorce, embryonic research, etc. It wants to return to the Inquisition.
 

// posted by USWest

Anonymous said...

Yes. Actually the Europeans have a longer history with this sort of thing than we Americans do. While the Republican party has been overtly pushing a religious agenda for the last 15 years or so, Christian Democratic parties in Europe have been acting as the political arm of the conservative Catholic movement for a century or more.  

// posted by Raised By Republicans