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 fetus, 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." It admits 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.

The Church's position

History

The Catholic Church claims that it has condemned procured abortion as immoral ever since the first century. Early Christianity's rejection of abortion is witnessed to by its earliest widely used doctrinal documents outside the New Testament, the Didache and the Letter of Barnabas and by the 2nd-century writers Tertullian and Athenagoras of Athens.

Belief in delayed animation

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. This view was strongly expressed by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), who said that "no human intellect accepts the view that an infant has the rational soul from the moment of conception." In that view, early abortion was not homicide, the killing of a human being. A few decades after the death of Anselm, this became part of Catholic canon law in the Decretum Gratiani, which stated that "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body." While not classified as homicide, early abortion was considered gravely wrong: Thomas Aquinas, who accepted Aristotle's theory that a human soul was infused only after 40 days for a male fetus, 60 days for a female, saw abortion of an unsouled fetus as a sin against marriage. 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 brief 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. Without 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 a mere 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."

United States

In the United States the Catholic Church were leaders in denouncing "criminal abortion" in the latter half of the 19th century. The Michigan State Medical Society journal reported in 1870 that, while most churches were "neglecting" the subject of abortion, Catholic priests were teaching that "destruction of the embryo at any period from the first instant of conception is a crime equal in guilt to that of murder," and "that to admit its practice is to open the way for the most unbridled licentiousness, and to take away the responsibility of maternity is to destroy one of the strongest bulwarks of female virtue." In 1881 the same journal reported that Catholic anti-abortion efforts had been much more successful than Protestant ones.

Recent events

The Roman Catholic Church's position on abortion has been the subject of controversy on recent occasions. In October 1984, Catholics for Choice (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 stated 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 took 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 April 2004, Archbishop Raymond Burke forbade Senator John Kerry, a Catholic, to take communion because of his stance on abortion and possibly stem cell research. In November 2009, Bishop Thomas Tobin barred Representative Patrick Kennedy from communion for the same reason. Burke also said that Rudy Giuliani should not approach to receive communion, while Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh said that, because of "national ramifications", individual bishops should not make such statements. Earlier, in 1984, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor, then Archbishop of New York , had contemplated excommunicating the then Governor of New York Mario Cuomo.

Automatic excommunication for procuring abortion (canon 1398) continues in force. In May 2007, Pope Benedict XVI, referring to what is envisaged in canon law, said he supported the Mexican bishops who threatened but did not impose excommunication on those who voted for legalizing abortion in Mexico City. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, clarified that the Pope was not excommunicating anyone and did not mean to depart from a recent declaration that placed the decision to leave the Church in the hands of individual politicians. Though the politicians in question were not excommunicated, Lombardi said, they excluded themselves from receiving communion.

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. 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".

In November 2009, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride for allowing, as a member of the ethics board of a Catholic hospital, doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother of four suffering from pulmonary hypertension. Olmsted said: "While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means."

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 first 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.

Unintentional abortion

See also: Principle of double effect

Catholic scholars with The National Catholic Review and AmericanCatholic.org make a distinction between "direct abortions" —that is, abortion which is either an end or a means— and "indirect abortions." While the Church opposes all direct abortions, it does not condemn procedures which indirectly result in the loss of the unborn child as a "secondary effect."

The term "procure" is used in the English translation by the Canon Law Society of America of the Code of Canon Law, whose canon 1398 declares: "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication."

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. 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 or participate in an abortion are subject to ipso facto latae sententiae excommunication under Canon law (automatic excommunication, literally by that very fact the sentence is incurred), provided that the person knows of the penalty at the time the abortion occurs.

According to a memorandum written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Catholic politicians who campaign and vote for permissive abortion laws should be warned by their priest to refrain from receiving communion or risk being denied the Eucharist until they change their political views. This position is based on Canon 915 and is also supported by Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church besides the Pope himself.

Catholic position on legalization of voluntary abortion

"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."

Opinion polls of Catholcs

Between 16% and 22% of American Catholic voters share the view that abortion should never be permitted by law, while one in fourteen British Catholics believe the same. When posed a binary question of whether abortion was acceptable or unacceptable, rather than a question of whether it should be allowed or not allowed in all or most cases, 40% of American Catholics said it was acceptable, approximately the same percentage as non-Catholics; 58% said it was morally wrong. The percentage of American Catholics that believe it should be legal in "all or most cases" is approximately half, with 47-54% giving this as their position. Latinos and those who attend church weekly are more likely to oppose abortion.

In the United States, 29% of Catholic voters choose their candidate based solely on the candidate's position on abortion; most of these vote for anti-abortion candidates. 44% believe a "good Catholic" cannot vote for a pro-choice politician, while 53% believe one can. 68% of American Catholics believe that one can be a "good Catholic" while disagreeing with the church's position on abortion, approximately as many as members of other religious groups.

Dissent among Catholics

Philosopher Daniel Dombrowski wrote, with Richard Deltete, A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion, which analyzed Church theological history to argue that Catholic values supported a pro-choice position.

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. Catholics for Choice believe:

Church teachings, tradition and core Catholic tenets—including the primacy of conscience, the role of the faithful in defining legitimate laws and norms, and support for the separation of church and state—leave room for supporting a more liberal position on abortion. ... Catholics can, in good conscience, support access to abortion and affirm that abortion can be a moral choice. Indeed, many of us do.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated 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." Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz excommunicated all members of this organization in his jurisdiction in 1996.

See also

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

External Links

• M. Pangallo. The Philosophy of Saint Thomas on the Human Embryo. XII General Assembly International Congress "The Human Embryo Before Implantation"