As Europe’s Christian Democratic parties are removed from the corridors of power today, there are signs that these once religious-based parties are reviving moral, if not faith, concerns in Europe.
The Public Justice Report (Vol. 23, No. 3), the newsletter of the Association for Public Justice, an evangelical political action caucus, notes that Christian Democratic parties’ new outsider role in European governments has served as an impetus for these groups to re-orient themselves toward their original principles and ideals.
The climate change is evident among the parties in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium as well as in a new document called “A Union of Values.” Adopted at the congress of the European People’s Party (a coalition of Christian-Democrat, Centrist and Conservative parties) in Berlin, the document calls for the “right to life and the uniqueness of each human being from the moment of conception to death.”
The statement is meant to set a common legal standard for the protection of the human person throughout Europe rather than leaving these questions for national governments, especially as European unity becomes a reality. The document also states that experiments on human embryos should only be conducted if they seek to protect the life and health of the specific embryo that is the subject of the experiment.
(Public Justice Report, P.O. Box 48368, Washington, DC 20002-0368)