Catholic Church and abortion

A Knights of Columbus sign at a pro-life rally.

The Roman Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or foetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life." However, it does recognize as morally legitimate certain acts which indirectly result in the death of the fetus, as when the direct purpose is removal of a cancerous womb. Canon 1398 of the Code of Canon Law imposes automatic excommunication on Latin Rite Catholics who procure a completed abortion, if they fulfil the conditions for being subject to such a sanction. Eastern Catholics are not subject to automatic excommunication, but they are to be excommunicated by decree if found guilty of the same action, and they may be absolved of the sin only by the eparchial bishop. In addition to saying that abortion is immoral, the Catholic Church also makes statements and takes actions in opposition to its legality.

The Church's teaching on abortion is a matter of morality and all baptised Catholics are bound by it. It is not a mere 'view' which can be rejected.

Church doctrine

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Pro-Life Activities" website, the Catholic Church has condemned procured abortion as immoral since the 1st century. Some early Christian doctrinal documents rejecting abortion are the Didache and the Letter of Barnabas and the works of 2nd-century writers Tertullian and Athenagoras of Athens. In the 5th century, St. Augustine "vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion" as a crime, in any stage of pregnancy, although he accepted the distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses mentioned in the Septuagint translation of Exodus 21:22–23, a text that, he observed, did not classify as murder the abortion of an "unformed" fetus, since it could not be said with certainty that it had already received a soul (see, e.g., De Origine Animae 4.4).

Belief in delayed animation

See also: History of early Christian thought on abortion and Ensoulment

It was commonly held, even by Christians, that a human being did not come into existence as such immediately on conception, but only some weeks later. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) said that "no human intellect accepts the view that an infant has the rational soul from the moment of conception". Abortion was viewed as a sin, but not as murder, until the embryo was animated by a human soul. A few decades after Anselm's death, Catholic canon law, in the Decretum Gratiani, stated that "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body." This Aristotelian view of delayed ensoulment was abandoned by the 17th century, when the conviction prevailed that the soul was present from the moment of conception, and the scientific proof in 1827 of the existence of the female ovum and in 1875 of the involvement of the union of a gamete from each parent in conception reduced speculation about a delayed substantial change.

However, even when Church law, in line with the then generally accepted theory of delayed ensoulment, assigned different penalties to earlier and later abortions, abortion at any stage was considered a grave evil. Thus Thomas Aquinas, who accepted the biological theory that a human soul was infused only after 40 days for a male fetus, 90 days for a female, saw abortion of an unsouled fetus as always unethical, a serious crime, a grave sin, a misdeed and contrary to nature. He wrote: "This sin, although grave and to be reckoned among misdeeds and against nature...is something less than homicide... nor is such to be judged irregular unless one procures the abortion of an already formed fetus."

Juridical consequences

Most early penitentials imposed equal penances for abortion whether early-term or late-term, but others distinguished between the two. Later penitentials normally distinguished, imposing heavier penances for late-term abortions.

Although the Decretum Gratiani, which remained the basis of Catholic canon law until replaced by the 1917 Code of Canon Law, distinguished between early-term and late-term abortions, that canonical distinction was abolished for a period of three years by the bull of Pope Sixtus V Effraenatam of 28 October 1588. This decreed various penalties against perpetrators of all forms of abortion without distinction. Calling abortion murder, it decreed that those who procured the abortion of a fetus, whether animated or unanimated, formed or unformed (tam animati, quam etiam inanimati, formati, vel informis) should suffer the same punishments as "true murderers and assassins who have actually and really committed murder" (veros homicidas, qui homicidium voluntarium actu, & re ipsa patraverint). As well as decreeing those punishments for subjects of the Papal States, whose civil ruler he was, Pope Sixtus also inflicted on perpetrators the spiritual punishment of automatic excommunication (section 7). Sixtus's successor, Pope Gregory XIV, recognizing that the law was not producing the hoped-for effects, withdrew it three years later, limiting the punishments to abortion of a "formed" fetus.

With his 1869 bull Apostolicae Sedis moderationi, Pope Pius IX rescinded Gregory XIV's not-yet-animated fetus exception with regard to the spiritual penalty of excommunication, declaring that those who procured an effective abortion incurred excommunication reserved to bishops or ordinaries. From then on this penalty is incurred automatically through abortion at any stage of pregnancy, which even before was never seen as a merely venial sin.

In another respect Catholic canon law continued even after 1869 to maintain a distinction between abortion of a formed and of an unformed fetus. As indicated above in a quotation from Thomas Aquinas, one who procured the abortion of a quickened fetus was considered "irregular", meaning that he was disqualified from receiving or exercising Holy Orders. Pope Sixtus V extended this penalty even to early-term abortion (section 2 of his bull Effraenatam), but Gregory XIV restricted it again. Pius IX made no ruling in its regard, with the result that the penalty of irregularity was still limited to late-term abortion at the time of the article "Abortion" in the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia. The 1917 Code of Canon Law finally did away with the distinction.

Discussions about possible justifying circumstances

In the Middle Ages, the Church condemned all abortions, and the 14th-century Dominican John of Naples is reported to have been the first to make an influential explicit statement that, if the purpose was to save the mother's life, abortion was actually permitted, provided that ensoulment had not been attained. This view met both support and rejection from other theologians. In the 16th century, while Thomas Sanchez accepted it, Antoninus de Corbuba made the distinction that from then on became generally accepted among Catholic theologians, namely that direct killing of the fetus was unacceptable, but that treatment to cure the mother should be given even if it would indirectly result in the death of the fetus.

When, in the 17th century, Francis Torreblanca approved abortions aimed merely at saving a woman's good name, the Holy Office (what is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), at that time headed by Pope Innocent XI, condemned the proposition that "it is lawful to procure abortion before ensoulment of the fetus lest a girl, detected as pregnant, be killed or defamed".

Although it is sometimes said that 18th-century Alphonsus Liguori argued that, because of uncertainty about when the soul entered the fetus, abortion, while in general morally wrong, was acceptable in circumstances such as when the mother's life was in danger, he clearly stated that it is never right to take a medicine that of itself is directed to killing a fetus, although it is lawful (at least according to general theological opinion) to give a mother in extreme illness a medicine whose direct result is to save her life, even when it indirectly results in expulsion of the fetus. While Liguori mentioned the distinction then made between animate and inanimate fetuses, he explained that there was no agreement about when the soul is infused, with many holding that it happens at the moment of conception, and said that the Church kindly followed the 40-day opinion when applying the penalties of irregularity and excommunication only on those who knowingly procured abortion of an animate fetus.

A disapproving letter published in the New York Medical Record in 1895 spoke of the Jesuit Augustine Lehmkuhl as considering craniotomy lawful when used to save the mother's life. The origin of the report was an article in a German medical journal denounced as false in the American Ecclesiastical Review of the same year, which said that, while Lehmkuhl had at an earlier stage of discussion admitted doubts and advanced tentative ideas, he had later adopted a view in full accord with the negative decision pronounced in 1884 and 1889 by the Sacred Penitentiary, which in 1869 had refrained from making a pronouncement. According to Mackler, Lehmkuhl had accepted as a defensible theory the licitness of removing even an animated fetus from the womb as not necessarily killing it, but had rejected direct attacks on the fetus such as craniotomy.

Craniotomy was thus prohibited in 1884 and again in 1889. In 1895 the Holy See excluded the inducing of non-viable premature birth and in 1889 established the principle that any direct killing of either fetus or mother is wrong; in 1902 it ruled out the direct removal of an ectopic embryo to save the mother's life, but did not forbid the removal of the infected fallopian tube, thus causing an indirect abortion.(see below).

In 1930 Pope Pius XI ruled out what he called "the direct murder of the innocent" as a means of saving the mother. And the Second Vatican Council declared: "Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."

Unintentional abortion

See also: Principle of double effect

The principle of double effect is frequently cited in relation to abortion. A doctor who believes abortion is always morally wrong may nevertheless remove the uterus or fallopian tubes of a pregnant woman, knowing the procedure will cause the death of the embryo or fetus, in cases in which the woman is certain to die without the procedure (examples cited include aggressive uterinecancer and ectopic pregnancy). In these cases, the intended effect is to save the woman's life, not to terminate the pregnancy, and the death of the embryo or fetus is foreseen as a side effect, not intended even as a means to another end. That is, the death of the fetus is not the means to an end, but an undesirable but unavoidable consequence. Thus chemotherapy or removal of a cancerous organ does not abort the fetus in order to cure the cancer, but instead it cures the cancer while also having the foreseen indirect result of aborting the embryo or fetus.

Ectopic pregnancy

An ectopic pregnancy is one of the only cases where the foreseeable death of an embryo is allowed, since it is categorized as an indirect abortion. In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI writes that "the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever". This view was also advocated by Pius XII in a 1953 address to the Italian Association of Urology.

Using the Thomistic Principle of Totality (removal of a pathological part to preserve the life of the person) and the Doctrine of Double Effect, the only moral action in an ectopic pregnancy where a woman's life is directly threatened is the removal of the tube containing the human embryo (salpingectomy). The death of the human embryo is unintended although foreseen.

In Catholic theology, it is never permissible to evacuate the fetus using methotrexate or to incise the Fallopian tube to extract the fetus (salpingostomy), as these procedures are considered to be direct abortions.

Embryos

See also: Stem cell controversy

The Church considers the destruction of any embryo to be equivalent to abortion, and thus opposes embryonic stem cell research. The Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae states that "We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children."

Sanctions

Catholics who procure a completed abortion are subject to a latae sententiae excommunication. That means that the excommunication does not need to be imposed (as with a ferendae sententiae penalty); rather, being expressly established by law, it is incurred ipso facto when the delict is committed (a latae sententiae penalty). Canon law states that in certain circumstances "the accused is not bound by a latae sententiae penalty"; among the ten circumstances listed are commission of a delict by someone not yet sixteen years old, or by someone who without negligence does not know of the existence of the penalty, or by someone "who was coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience".

According to a 2004 memorandum by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Catholic politicians who consistently campaign and vote for permissive abortion laws should be informed by their priest of the Church's teaching and warned to refrain from receiving communion or risk being denied the Eucharist until they end that activity. This position is based on Canon 915 and has also been supported, in a personal capacity, by Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church after the Pope himself.

Forgivability of women who abort

Apart from indicating in its canon law that automatic excommunication does not apply to women who abort because of grave fear or due to grave inconvenience, the Catholic Church, without making any such distinctions, assures the possibility of forgiveness for women who have committed what it sees as the sin of abortion. Pope John Paul II wrote:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Recent statements of the Church's position

See also: Evangelium Vitae

The Church teaches that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life."

Since the 1st century, the Church has affirmed that every procured abortion is a moral evil, a teaching that the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares "has not changed and remains unchangeable".

The Church teaches that the inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation. In other words, it is beholden upon society to legally protect the life of the unborn.

Catholic theologians trace Catholic thought on abortion to early Christian teachings such as the Didache, Barnabas and the Apocalypse of Peter. In contrast, Catholic philosophers Daniel Dombrowski and Robert Deltete analyzed Church theological history in A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion to argue that Catholic views on abortion have varied and changed throughout history, and that Catholic values supported a pro-choice position.

Recent events

United States

An independent organization called Catholics for Choice was founded in 1973 to support the availability of abortion, stating that this position is compatible with Catholic teachings, particularly the primacy of conscience and the importance of the laity in shaping church law. This organization was founded "to serve as a voice for Catholics" who believe that contraception and abortion are moral. In October 1984, CFC (then Catholics for a Free Choice) placed an advertisement, signed by over one hundred prominent Catholics, including nuns, in the New York Times. The advertisement, called A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion rejected claims by the hierarchy that all Catholics opposed abortion rights, as well as stating that "direct abortion...can sometimes be a moral choice" and that "responsible moral decisions can only be made in an atmosphere of freedom from fear of coercion." The Vatican initiated disciplinary measures against some of the nuns who signed the statement, sparking controversy among American Catholics, and intra-Catholic conflict on the abortion issue remained news for at least two years in the United States. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz excommunicated all members of this organization in his jurisdiction in 1996, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops stated in 2000 that "[CFC] is not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church as articulated by the Holy See and the USCCB."

Ireland

In October 2012, Savita Halappanavar died at University College Hospital Galway in Ireland, after suffering a miscarriage which led to septicemia (blood poisoning), multiple organ failure and her death. Her husband said that she was denied abortion under Irish law because the fetus had a heartbeat, and was told nothing could be done because, as a doctor involved in the case is reported to have remarked, "This is a Catholic country." Widespread protests were subsequently held in Ireland, India, England and other countries and a call to re-examine the Irish abortion laws.

Belgium

Prior to 1990, Belgium remained one of the few countries where abortion was illegal. However, abortions were unofficially permitted (and even reimbursed out of 'sickness funds') as long as they were registered as "curettage". It was estimated that 20,000 abortions were performed each year (in comparison to 100,000 births).

In early 1990, despite the opposition of the Christian parties, a coalition of the Socialist and Liberal parties passed a law to partially liberalize abortion law in Belgium. The Belgian bishops appealed to the population at large with a public statement that expounded their doctrinal and pastoral opposition to the law. They warned Belgian Catholics that anyone who co-operated "effectively and directly" in the procurement of abortions was "excluding themselves from the ecclesiastical community." Motivated by the strong stance of the Belgian bishops, King Baudoin notified the Prime Minister on March 30 that he could not sign the law without violating his conscience as a Catholic. Since the legislation would not have the force of law without the king's signature, his refusal to sign threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis. However, the problem was resolved by an agreement between the king and Prime Minister Martens by which the Belgian government declared the king unable to govern, assumed his authority and enacted the law, after which Parliament then voted to reinstate the king on the next day. The Vatican described the king's action as a "noble and courageous choice" dictated by a "very strong moral conscience." Others have suggested that Baudoin's action was "little more than a gesture", since he was reinstated as king just 44 hours after he was removed from power.

Poland

Main article: Abortion in Poland

It is widely believed that the Catholic Church in Poland is the main source of opposition to the liberalization of abortion laws and the reintroduction of sex education in Polish schools in accordance with European standards. However, research studies have shown that Polish Catholics have a wide range of views on sex and marriage. Many Poles, including devout Catholics, complain that the Catholic Church makes demands that very few Catholics want and are able to satisfy.

Brazil

In March 2009, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said that, by securing the abortion of a nine-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather, her mother and the doctors involved were excommunicated latae sententiae. This statement of the Archbishop drew criticism not only from women's rights groups, but also from Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who said it was unjust, and from a French bishop, who questioned the applicability, in this case, of canon 1398 to the girl's mother. In view of the interpretations that were placed upon Archbishop Fisichella's article, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a clarification reiterating that "the Church's teaching on procured abortion has not changed, nor can it change".

India

Mother Teresa opposed abortion, and in the talk she gave in Norway on being awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace, she called abortion "the greatest destroyer of peace today". She further asserted that, "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want".

Political debate over legalization of abortion

Main article: Abortion law

Position of the Church

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Since the Catholic Church views procured abortion as gravely wrong, it considers it a duty to reduce its acceptance by the public and in civil legislation. While it considers that Catholics should not favour direct abortion in any field, it recognizes that Catholics may accept compromises that, while permitting direct abortions, lessen their incidence by, for instance, restricting some forms or enacting remedies against the conditions that give rise to them. It is accepted that support may be given to a political platform that contains a clause in favour of abortion but also elements that will actually reduce the number of abortions, rather than to an anti-abortion platform that will lead to their increase.

In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declared: "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

Church treatment of pro-choice politicians

Main article: Catholic politicians, abortion and communion or excommunication

Many controversies have arisen over its treatment of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. In most cases, Church officials have threatened to refuse communion to these politicians. In some cases, officials have stated that the politicians should refrain from receiving communion; in others, the possibility of excommunication has been suggested.

Medical personnel and hospitals

Some medical personnel, including many Catholics, have strong moral or religious objections to abortions and do not wish to perform or assist in abortions. The Catholic Church has argued that the "freedom of conscience" rights of such personnel should be legally protected. For example, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops supports such "freedom of conscience" legislation arguing that all healthcare providers should be free to provide care to patients without violating their "most deeply held moral and religious convictions." The Virginia Catholic Conference expressed support for pharmacists who consider that they cannot in conscience be on duty during a sale of emergency contraception, which they believe is the same as abortion.

In response to such concerns, many states in the U.S. have enacted "freedom of conscience" laws that protect the right of medical personnel to refuse to participate in procedures such as abortion. In 2008, towards the end of the second Bush administration, the U.S. federal government issued a new rule that ensured that healthcare workers would have the right to "refuse to participate in abortions, sterilizations or any federally funded health service or research activity on religious or ethical grounds." The new rule was welcomed by pro-life organizations including the Catholic Church; however, pro-choice advocates criticized the new regulation arguing that it would "restrict access not only to abortion but also to contraception, infertility treatment, assisted suicide and stem-cell research." The incoming Obama administration proposed to rescind this rule.

Attempts have been made to oblige Catholic hospitals to accept an obligation to perform emergency abortions in cases where the pregnant woman's life is at risk; however, hospitals that agree to perform abortions in contradiction Church teaching may lose their official qualification as "Catholic". Church authorities have also admonished Catholic hospitals who, following medical standards, refer patients outside the hospital for abortion or contraception, or who perform tests for fetal deformity.

One Catholic hospital devotes care to helping women who wish to stop an abortion after the process has begun.

In November 2009, when Sister Margaret McBride, as a member of the ethics board of a Catholic hospital, allowed doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother of four suffering from pulmonary hypertension, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted excommunicated her on the grounds that, while efforts should be made to save a pregnant woman's life, abortion cannot be justified as a means to that end.

See also

• Religion and abortion
• Christianity and abortion
• Catholic moral theology
• Culture war
• Pro-life
• Right to life
• Sanctity of life
• Culture of life