Macau's Bishop Stephen Lee Bun Sang has encouraged Catholics and those of other faiths to promote the culture of love and life to combat abortion in the former Portuguese colony.
A few days ago, the Macau Diocese premiered the 2019 pro-life American drama film “Unplanned.”
Abby Johnson, former clinic director of Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organisation that provides abortion-related health services worldwide, wrote the memoir, “Unplanned,” in 2011.
The agency's former director, Johnson, went on to become a leading anti-abortion activist.
In a Portuguese-language Catholic weekly “Journal O'Clarim,” the Catholic theatre Cineteatro de Macau screened the film on May 14, with support from the Macau Diocesan Media Center, the Association for Breastfeeding and Child Care in Macau, and the Association for Support of Mentally Handicapped Persons in Macau.
Bishop Bun Sang said Macau Diocese did not intend to show "the truth about the clinical procedure of abortion" by premiering the film.
He stated, "The aim was not to mention how the Catholic Church views abortion, but to tell the truth, especially about the [clinical] abortion procedure."
“It should not be allowed to destroy any kind of life, no matter what," Bishop Lee said.
"If we say a fetus has no life, then we are in fact denouncing basic anthropology - how a human life begins and develops," he stated.
Women's rights have been misconstrued by feminism, the idea being that they can do whatever they want with their bodies, including having abortions.
The lives of our people should always come first when it comes to questions of life, he said.
People in Macau, including schools, are encouraged to promote a culture of life and love at all stages, from the embryo to natural death.
In the 1557-1999 period, Portugal ruled Macau, a gaming and gambling hub in China.
Macau's thriving entertainment industry makes it an ideal destination for the sex trafficking of women and girls, resulting in unwanted pregnancies.
Macau reported 43 abortions out of every 1,000 women in 2012, according to the Lancet medical journal.
Abortion is not officially counted in Macau, but media reports suggest it is still high, as it is in mainland China, where it has been legal since the 1950s. - Anbu Selvam
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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