YOU ARE EUROPEAN – BE PRO-LIFE

In the EU countries there is an action of collecting signatures under the European Civil Initiative ‘One of us’. Its purpose is to block EU means for financing abortion, experiments on human embryos and other actions against life, and also create legislation protecting law for life of children from conception. On Sunday 3 February, after the Angelus prayer, the Holy Father XVI expressed his support to the European Civil Initiative ‘One of us’, expressing his wish that Europe would always be a place where every human being will be protected in its dignity. The organizers of the initiative must collect at least 1 million signatures and at least 7 EU countries must join the action, so that the European Parliament could consider this civil initiative.

The coordinator of the Polish National Committee of the European Civil Initiative ‘One of us’ is Jakub Bałtroszewicz. In his opinion, Poland had a big pro-life potential, which can be also expressed in the support of this initiative. – Sometimes there are attempts of imposing this kind of narration on us: You are European – you should be for euthanasia or abortion, etc. But we say: - You are European – Be pro-life! said Jakub Bałtroszewicz for the Catholic Informative Agency. The Civil Committee of the Initiative ‘One of us’, which is consisted of the representatives of Poland, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, France and Hungary prepared a legislative proposal. The European Civil Committee ‘One of us’ is based on the statement of the European Justice Tribunal which in 2012 stated, in the matter of Brustle versus Greenpeace, that the human embryo is a human being and it undergoes protection. – if one of the most important EU institutions states that the human embryo is a human being, then we should be consistent – says the Polish coordinator of the action ‘One of us’. – We mean that legislation and policy of the European Union should be compact. However, financial policy of the European Union is not like this. The European Union assigns millions of euro for private organizations, whose one of the most important purposes is carrying our abortion or experiments on embryonic stem cells. The organizers of this action ‘One of us’ appeal to the European Union to stop financing private organizations which kill the conceived life or manipulate it.

The European Civil Initiative ‘One of us’ was registered on 11 May 2012. Since then, theoretically, it has one year for collecting 1 million signatures. In practice, however, it turned out that because the European Commission did not provide a tool for gathering votes on-line, the deadline of collecting signatures was prolonged till 1 November 2013. – After receiving this programming we still had to gain the European Safety Certificate for which the government of Luxemburg is responsible, but in the beginning of January this year the website jedenznas.eu was started. The system is working now and signatures can be given. – After collecting a million of votes the European Commission will organize public conference on the summit and then we will have a chance to present our arguments to commissioners, for the change of the EU financial policy – announces Bałtroszewicz. Next, the Commission will make a decision whether the European Parliament will consider this matter or not. – Whatever you will decide, it must be justified, and the decision with justification should be publicized in the Journal of Act of the European Commission in all official EU languages – he emphasizes.

The organizers of the action hope that the first European Civil Initiative in history will end successfully not only in the form of number of supporting votes, but a real change in EU regulations. Moreover, they hope that the European-wide pro-life network will be created which will be able to work effectively at the moments when the human Christian vision is endangered by the bad law. – we want to create a group of pressure which will be able to appear in a professional and European-wide way in Brussels if it is necessary and take part in a lobby for the pro-life sake – announces Bałtroszewicz.

In Poland the campaign was started on 26 February 2013. On this day a press conference was planned to inaugurate the campaign in Poland. Signatures of the support for the Initiative can be given at: www.jedenznas.eu and the portal of ‘Niedziela’: www.niedziela.pl

(AA)

"Niedziela" 9/2013

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl