Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Never before has the "natural institution of marriage and the family been the victim of so many violent attacks", this according to a 60-page document issued today by the Pontifical Council for the Family. These attacks are the consequence of a rising individualistic worldview that expresses itself in the "apology of single-parent, reconstituted, homosexual, lesbian families" that tends to regard the crime of abortion as a "right", but in doing so it breaks with "true intergenerational solidarity". The papal document goes on to denounce the "purely individualistic vision of man and woman" that is promoted today and that urges people to "transcend the family".

It its analysis of the causes of the current situation, the document especially singles out feminism. "After Engels," it says, "feminist movements exacerbated the relationship between men and women. They called for the family to be transcended in order to free women from male oppression and the burden of maternity and give their individuality the means to assert itself unhindered."

Within this context, "it is clear that—when it comes to avoiding pregnancies, including not only contraception but also abortion—any reference to God is eclipsed by the prevailing vision of responsible procreation."

Within this "changed model of the family and conjugality, the unit made up of husband and wife and one child or at the most two children has become 'dominant'."

"This means that accomplishing potentially procreative conjugal acts is nothing more than the sum of brief episodes of conjugal existence that has been wilfully made sterile," something that "seriously devalues procreation".

"Periodic self-restraint, i.e. using marriage only in non fertile periods, when there are reasons for it" is instead legitimate, as "are natural methods". This shows "an attitude of openness and confidence in God's will" as opposed to contraception which "is the assertion of a rationalist and egocentric individualism".

The attack against the family expresses itself especially in the "apology of single-parent, reconstituted, homosexual and lesbian families. Homosexual couples claim the same rights as husband and wife, even the right to adopt. Women living in lesbian unions claim the same rights, demanding that the law give them access to artificial insemination or embryonic implants. By the same token, the ease with which the law allows such couples to form reflect the ease with which divorce and repudiation can be obtained".

Finally, "there is an attempt somehow to make abortion mainstream on the grounds that the authorities should not repress this abominable crime." However, "abortion, when it is willed as a means and an end, constitutes a serious moral disorder" since "it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being". "No law in the world," the document says, "can make lawful an act that is intrinsically unlawful because it is against the law of God."

Today "there is an attempt somehow to make abortion mainstream on the grounds that the authorities should not repress this abominable crime." And to follow this line of argument means reducing or denying the crime which, as a crime, calls for punishment. But it is not conceivable that a crime can go unpunished". Hence for the Council for the Family, "abortion and infanticide are proof of the lack of proper legal protection for the unborn".

In those legal systems that in various ways legalise abortion, "not all human beings are deemed persons. This means the state is vested with the right to decide who is and who is not a person, hence the right to apply to human beings the same rules that are applied to the animal kingdom." Despite this, the "future child is a human person".