...The original evidence for the foundations of human beings and of their ethical behaviour has been lost, and the doctrine of natural moral law clashes with other concepts which run directly contrary to it. All this has enormous consequences on civil and social order. A positivist conception of law seems to prevail today for not a few thinkers. According to them, humanity, or society, or in effect the majority of citizens, become the ultimate source for civil legislation. The problem that arises is not, then, the search for good but the search for power, or rather the balance of power. At the root of this trend is ethical relativism, in which some even see one of the principal conditions for democracy because relativism could preserve tolerance and mutual respect. But if this were true, the majority at any given moment would become the ultimate source of the law, and history shows with great clarity that majorities can make mistakes. True rationality is not guaranteed by the consensus of the greater number, but only from the transparency of human reason to Creative Reason and from shared listening to this Source to our rationality.
When the fundamental demands of the dignity of the human person, of his life, of the institution of the family, of the equity of social order, that is, the fundamental rights of men, are at stake, no law made by man may subvert the law written by the Creator in the heart of man, without which society itself is dramatically struck in what constitutes its inalienable foundation. Natural law becomes thus the true guarantee given to all to live freely and respected in their dignity, protected from all ideological manipulation and from all arbitrary abuse of the powerful. No one can disregard this warning.
From the annual report on the Italian Abortion Law (Act 194/1978) by the Minister of Health of Romano Prodi's government, Ms. Livia Turco (report in Italian; abortion data for 2006 - 130,000 abortions):
...adopting the full application of Act 194/1978 as a priority of public health choices, the need for its modification is not foreseen, but, on the contrary, the need for a renewed programmatic and operational commitment by all competent institutions and [health] services operators.
...
...underlining the complexity of the ethical values which legislators have granted to the institutions and to society as a whole, [it is] confirmed that the law has been and continues to be not only efficacious, but also wise and foresighted, deeply respectful of the ethical principles of the care for women's health, of the female responsibility for procreation, of the social value of motherhood, and of the value of human life from its beginning.
