Comments for Two Cheers for Pro-Life Europe at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:41:44 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/two-cheers-for-pro-life-europe.html#comment-9651 I think the essential difference between us, European people, and you is the rejection to mention God in law, so that He has already disappeared into the collective conscience. Only you, Americans, could have still the courage, and I hope the coherent strenght to enforce this link also in the educational critical passage of the natural law. - Paolo Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:08:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/two-cheers-for-pro-life-europe.html#comment-9648 Most Western European countries, with the exception of Germany and most of the U.K. restrict abortion to the first trimester, with various exceptions for health-related issues, counseling, and sex crimes. If our policies were determined by elected legislators rather than judicial rulings like Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Dalton, we would probably have similar restrictions. - Howard Kainz Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:17:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/two-cheers-for-pro-life-europe.html#comment-9645 We typically think Europe is exponentially further out on the pelvic left. On some issues – like homosexual marriage – they are. ============================================================ Kinda like praising with faint damns, Austin. Of course, the Europeans have a ways to go to "catch up" to American kitsch culture in so many ways. But give them time and they'll be a Mickey Mouse kingdom in every country and a McDonald's in every village some day. - Grump Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:47:38 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/two-cheers-for-pro-life-europe.html#comment-9644 I think you exaggerate on the issue of SSM. Only six out of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe allow SSM. On 22 November 2011, the European Court of Human Rights, in a plenary session, upheld the right of member states to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples (Schalk and Kopf v. Austria) Even in a country as secular as France, the two highest courts, the Court of Cassation (13 March 2007)) and the Constitutional Council (28 January 2011) confirmed the judgment of the lower courts in rejecting a right to SSM. They upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal that its “specific and non-discriminatory character was the result of the fact that nature had limited potential fertility to couples of different sexes… Clearly, same-sex couples whom nature had not made potentially fertile were consequently not concerned by the institution of marriage. This was differential legal treatment because their situation was not analogous” The Civil Code contains no definition of marriage, but the courts treated Article 312 - “The child conceived or born during the marriage has the husband for father” – as a functional definition. - Michael PS Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:11:28 +0100