Nepal, in the past couples of years, has witnessed the initiation of awareness generation and promotion of both temporary and permanent means of family planning with support of various international agencies. Even until the past decade, due to the limited understanding of the functions of these contraceptives, they were considered effective in preventing conception. Thus the churches in Nepal had accepted the use of such contraceptives.
With the advent of democracy various forms of sex trades are being legitimized by the government of Nepal. Some of the examples are recognition of homosexuality and legal abortion.
Registrations of hospitals run by HDS were at the verge of termination when these hospitals claimed their Christian identity and refused to provide abortion services. As part of a lobby, the director of HDS, Mr. Tirtha Thapa, narrated verses from the bible to the cabinet and explained to them that the baby inside the womb of a mother is a human being like any of us and has rights to life. The ministers of the cabinet were convinced and thus these hospitals were allowed to function without providing abortion services.
According to the bible abortion is murder. In the eyes of God the fetus in a mother’s womb is as human as any of us “humans”. Thus abortion is literally killing of a human and that is murder.
In the recent years the contraceptives being promoted in India and distributed in Nepal by Nepal CRS Company work in destroying the fetus (ovum) after conception instead of preventing it. The issue on whether the ovum is human and destroying it is murder has become a topic of hot discussion.
Let us look at the issue from a different angle. In the Christian faith, which is based on the teachings of Christ, only sexual relationship among married couple (husband and wife) is considered sacred otherwise it is a heinous sin. But in our contemporary society cases of prostitution and illegitimate sexual relationships are increasing. In such context the proportionate spread in HIV AIDS and other forms of sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise.
Though condoms are being promoted as a measure for minimizing such incidents the question of whether the use of condoms is really safe or not has its own dimensions. According to a recent survey, though the effectiveness of condom in preventing conception is very high its efficiency in preventing HIV AIDS and other forms of STDs is very low. More than 15% of condom users are vulnerable to contracting such diseases. Latex condoms, which are considered the best in the industry, have intrinsic voids of about 5 microns which are 50 times larger than the AIDS viruses. Thus a virus can easily pass through the condoms if it finds a passage. Again with the availability of various contraceptives couples usually prefer the use of these contraceptives in place of condoms thus maximizing the chances of spread of such diseases.
In the relevance of such circumstances it is very important that churches in Nepal strictly preach and foster the practice of sex only within marital relationship. It is also of utmost importance that the churches declare abortion in any circumstances as unacceptable. The churches also need to strongly condemn and oppose the national law for legalizing abortion.
Translated By Raju Pradhan
Republished in new layout 6/13/2013
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