Pro-life movement starts a new initiative.
Citizens' initiative Prolife.hr unveiled on Friday the national petition “I have a right to live”, which seeks, as they explained, maximum protection of unborn children. The signatures will be collected until 16 April and will then be submitted to the government and parliament, reports Nacional on March 19, 2017.
The signatures will be collected around Croatia, in towns, villages, parishes and dioceses. The organizers expect a large number of signatures, but did not want to talk about specific legal provisions which they demand to be introduce, adding only that they expect laws to protect unborn children, taking into account the fact that life begins at conception.
The internet part of the petition has already been launched on 2 March, the day when the Constitutional Court rejected the request for a ban on women's right to abortion and ordered Parliament to adopt a new law within two years. The new law should replace the current law, which also allows abortion and which was adopted in 1978.
“We want to collect as many signatures as possible and send them to Parliament and the government, pursuant to the decision of the Constitutional Court that a new law on the unborn will be adopted in the next two years”, said Mateja Glavaš. She pointed out that four medical schools have said that human life begins at the moment of conception, and therefore they ask politicians and authorities “not to allow ideological assumptions to overcome these scientific facts”.
They demand from the authorities to adopt concrete measures to help pregnant women and care for them, as well as to introduce financial measures to support safe houses which make it easier for abused women to decide to give birth.
President of the conservative Vigilare Foundation Vice Batarelo said that they had ready a whole network to collect the signatures. He added that the petition will not ask for a referendum, but was rather a way to pressure the government. “This is a process. After the petition, we are going to start discussions and establish working groups”, said Batarelo.
President of the Croatian Movement for Life and Family Katarina Kovačević said that the right to life was a fundamental right from which comes every other right, while Kristina Pavlović from the GROZD association said that “civilization which kills its children is not an advanced civilization”.
