NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

    BRAZZAVILLE (CWNews.com/Fides) - A Spanish nun working in the Democratic Republic of Congo decried the policy of Brazzaville hospitals to dispose of the bodies of aborted children in trash bins.

    "Unborn babies merit respect: they cannot speak, I will be their voice!" said Sr. Anna Perez Cossio, of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny. Sister Anna, 26, works at the University Hospital in Brazzaville, Congo, in the maternity and pediatric wards. In addition to babies killed in abortions, she witnesses every day the death of as many as fifteen child patients, starving and exhausted victims of the war in the Pool region.

    Distressed at the sight of so many children killed by abortion and war, Sister Anne set up a local pro-life movement. "It is terrible to see unborn babies in our garbage bins," she said. "They cannot speak. I will be their voice!" She has already convinced several doctors to join the movement, which will provide assistance and counseling to help women decide to keep their babies, even when they feel the only solution is to abort.

    "Very often the father refuses to accept his responsibility and to recognize the child as his," she said. Many of the women coming for an abortion have been abandoned by the father and their family, and are young, with no means of livelihood and fear that alone, they cannot cope with a child.

    "We help them to overcome their fears, to accept and welcome the child. We also offer spiritual guidance." Once the baby is born the movement puts the new mothers in contact with a forum of young enterprises, whose members help the mother with micro-loans to start a small business and make a living for herself and her baby.

    The movement also focuses on prevention by means of sensitization. "This evil must be eliminated at the roots. Young women must be warned of the great dangers of abortion," said Sister Anne. The group organizes courses in schools and parishes to explain the physical and psychological damage caused by abortion.

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