Federal Association for the Law of Life

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Federal Association for the Law of Life
(BVL)
logo
legal form Registered association
founding 2001
Seat Berlin , Germany
main emphasis Organization of the annual demonstration March for Life
Action space Germany
Chair Alexandra Maria Linder (Chair), Hartmut Steeb (Deputy Chair)
Website bundesverband-lebensrecht.de

The Bundesverband Lebensrecht (BVL) is an association of German life rights groups founded in 2001 with headquarters in Berlin . The main activity of the association is the organization of the annual March for Life in Berlin. Alexandra Maria Linder has been the chairwoman since 2017 .

Club goals and activity

The aim of the association is, according to the statutes, the common advocacy "for the protection of the dignity and the right to life of unborn and born human beings from conception to natural death." Christian image of man finds expression ”.

The BVL has been organizing the “ March for Life ” in Berlin regularly since 2002 , initially under the title “1000 Crosses for Life”. This demonstration is considered to be the most important public form of action of the right to life movement in Germany.

The BVL also organizes training courses and symposia and does lobbying work. The anti-fascist press archive and education center Berlin assumes an "excellent networking of the BVL in the most important functional circles of politics and church".

According to the BVL, 1000 abortions are carried out every working day in Germany, including a high number of unreported cases according to the BVL. This number is symbolically charged in the right to life movement. For example, the Federal Association for the Law of Life brings 1000 crosses with them to the March for Life, which are supposed to symbolize abortions. The data from the Federal Statistical Office are far below this. In 2013, only 102,802, i.e. fewer than 350 terminations per working day were reported.

history

The association was first founded in 1988 as the “Kölner Kontakt-Kreis”, renamed “Kontakt -stelle Lebensrecht” in 1991 and “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lebensrecht” in 1994, before the association was founded in 2001 as “Bundesverband Lebensrecht e. V. ”took place. Founding chairman (2001–2009) was the doctor Claudia Kaminski , who headed the association until 2009 and until 2016 chaired the campaign for the right to live for a total of 20 years . Claudia Kaminski founded BVL together with Johanna Gräfin von Westphalen, Hartmut Steeb u. a. His successor in 2009 was the journalist Martin Lohmann , who headed the association until 2017. Alexandra Maria Linder has been chairwoman since 2017.

Board

The board consists of:

Member associations

In 2020, 12 organizations are organized in the BVL:

Former members:

criticism

In October 2010, 30 organizations - including the Federal Association of pro familia , the Giordano Bruno Foundation and the Humanist Association of Germany - published an open letter to the members of the German Bundestag in which they opposed the support of the Federal Association of Right to Live by Annette Schavan , Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg , Peter Müller and other prominent members of the CDU and CSU spoke out. The participants in the March for Life are, in their opinion, anti-abortionists with a “fundamentalist Christian view of the world” who support the goal of an unconditional ban on abortions , “including pregnancies caused by rape and incest or health affect the woman ”. The association's goals are "deeply undemocratic," according to the authors. In addition, he maintains “obviously contacts with right-wing extremist organs,” which, in the opinion of the signatories, include the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit . Various politicians from Bündnis90 / Die Grünen and others also criticized the annual demonstrations . a. Monika Lazar . Against these views, however, speaks that the BVL member organization "Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle eV" (ALfA) actively promotes the March for Life and is involved in it. The ALfA, on the other hand, deals with abortions in exceptional situations, such as after rape, the lack of viability of the unborn child and life-threatening circumstances of the pregnant woman.

The lawyer and managing director of the family planning center Balance in Berlin, Sybill Schulz, attributes the rise of anti-abortion opponents to the repressing of sexual self-determination. In addition, there is again a strong feeling of guilt among women if they accidentally become pregnant. Schulz describes the marches in various major cities in Germany as a “campaign-like radical approach”. BVL chairwoman Alexandra Maria Linder, on the other hand, speaks of extremist reactions and demands in the context of prenatal blood tests, surrogacy and late abortions, which are based on a mixture of misunderstood feminism and "modern", ruthless self-realization.

The journalists Oda Lambrecht and Christian Baars report in their book "Mission of God: Fundamentalist Christians in Germany" from the counter-demonstration "Smash §218 - Against Christian Fundamentalism" to the "March for Life", which is organized by the BVL and quote in this context a spokeswoman for the Pro Familia association. The political scientists Astrid Bötticher and Miroslav Mareš assign the BVL to religious extremism . However, a statement by the association on a color attack on a Berlin church, in which homophobia, anti-Semitism and misogyny are condemned with the words: "Because all of this forbids itself if you take Christianity seriously and know it, speaks against it." Alexandra Maria Linder, chairwoman of the BVL, said in an interview after the accusation of Christian fundamentalism at the "March for Life" that she saw this as an attempt to discredit the whole thing by defamation of manslaughter. She attributes the high proportion of Christian members in the right to life movements to the fact that it is typical for Christians to stand up especially for the innocent and weak and speaks in this context of a "right to life gene" that Christians naturally hold. Furthermore, according to Linder, the use of white wooden crosses during silent marches is not a Christian fundamentalist threatening message, but is intended to remind of the non-existent graves of millions of children, which, in their opinion, may be difficult to convey in a secularized world.

Web links

literature

  • Eike Sanders, Ulli Jentsch, Felix Hansen: "Germany is drifting away". Organized "protection of life", Christian fundamentalism and anti-feminism . Ed .: apabiz eV Unrast Verlag, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89771-121-1 .
  • Kirsten Achtelik , Eike Sanders, Ulli Jentsch: Kulturkampf and conscience: medical-ethical strategies of the "protection of life" movement. Verbrecher Verlag Berlin 2018 ISBN 978-3-95732-327-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Statutes - Federal Association of the Law of Life. In: bundesverband-lebensrecht.de. Retrieved January 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Sanders, Jentsch, Hansen 2014, p. 61 f.
  3. ↑ Sanders, Jentsch, Hansen 2014, p. 48 f.
  4. ↑ Sanders, Jentsch, Hansen 2014, p. 62
  5. ↑ Hartwig Hohnsbein: Influence and activities of fundamentalist Christian self-appointed life protection organizations . In: Kirsten Achtelik , Familienplanungszentrum Balance (ed.): The new radicalism of anti-abortion opponents in the (inter) national space: Is the sexual self-determination of women in danger today? AG SPAK books, Neu-Ulm 2012, ISBN 978-3-940865-32-8 , p. 34 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Oda Lambrecht, Christian Baars: Mission of God's Kingdom: Fundamentalist Christians in Germany . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-512-6 , p. 83 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ Sanders, Jentsch, Hansen 2014, p. 11
  8. ^ Anne Wizorek: Because an outcry is not enough: For a feminism of today . Fischer paperback, 2014, ISBN 978-3-596-03066-8 .
  9. ↑ Federal Statistical Office: Health. Abortions. 2013. Fachserie 12 Reihe 3, p. 9
  10. ↑ Bundesverband Lebensrecht: Martin Lohmann is the new federal chairman of the Bundesverband Lebensrecht (BVL). (No longer available online.) In: bv-lebensrecht.de. October 2, 2009, archived from the original on September 21, 2017 ; accessed on January 12, 2019 .
  11. ^ Bundesverband Lebensrecht: Alexandra Linder succeeds Martin Lohmann - German Evangelical Alliance. (No longer available online.) In: ead.de. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017 ; accessed on January 12, 2019 .
  12. ↑ https://www.bundesverband-lebensrecht.de/ueber-uns/
  13. ↑ About Us - Bundesverband Lebensrecht. In: bundesverband-lebensrecht.de. Retrieved January 12, 2019 .
  14. ^ Bundesverband Lebensrecht: Bundesverband Lebensrecht. (No longer available online.) In: bv-lebensrecht.de. Archived from the original on March 2, 2015 ; accessed on January 12, 2019 .
  15. ↑ CDU celebrities support fundamentalists. In: hpd.de. October 14, 2010, accessed January 12, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Jennifer Stange: Anti-abortion opponents in Berlin: Crosses in front of the Chancellery - taz.de. In: taz.de. September 23, 2012, accessed January 12, 2019 .
  17. ↑ f5reiprich: March for Life 2019 - Live report. In: The Action Right to Live for All. September 23, 2019, accessed on January 16, 2020 (German).
  18. ↑ Stefan Rehder: For a better climate . In: Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle eV (Ed.): LebensForum . 132, 4th quarter 2019. Augsburg 2019, p. 24 ff .
  19. ↑ Abortion | You should know that to abort | ALfA. In: The Action Right to Live for All. Retrieved January 16, 2020 (German).
  20. ↑ Patricia Hecht: Berlin Family Planning Center: "Compared to Fascists" - taz.de. In: taz.de. September 18, 2012, accessed January 12, 2019 .
  21. ^ A b c d Rudolf Gehrig: How tolerant is our society towards life protectors? Retrieved January 16, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Oda Lambrecht, Christian Baars: Mission of God's Kingdom: Fundamentalist Christians in Germany . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-512-6 , p. 83 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  23. ^ Astrid Bötticher, Miroslav Mareš: Extremism. Theories - Concepts - Shapes . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-59793-6 , p. 286 .
  24. ↑ bvlprzybilla: Color attack on the life-friendly church as a greeting to Hänel - Bundesverband Lebensrecht. Retrieved January 15, 2020 (German).
  25. ^ Reviews of "Kulturkampf und Gewissen". In: Perlentaucher.de .