eCatholicHub - Abortion

Catechism of the Catholic Church

#2270 - 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.¹

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.²
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.³

#2271 - Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embyro by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.⁴
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safegaurding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.⁵

#2273 - The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by divil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.⁶
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 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.⁷

#2274 - Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Guadium et Spes
Vatican II Council

(51) For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.¹

Donum Vitae
Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith

(Intro, 5) From the moment of conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way because man is the only creature on earth that God has wished for himself¹and the spiritual soul of each man is "immediately created" by God² ; his whole being bears the image of the Creator. Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves "the creative action of God"³ and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end.⁴ God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.⁵

(I, 1) At the Second Vatican Council, the Church for her part presented once again to modern man her constant and certain doctrine according to which: "Life, once conceived, must be protected with the utmost care; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."⁶ More recently, the Charter of the Rights of the Family, published by the Holy See, confirmed that "Human life must be absolutely respected and protected from the moment of conception.⁷(III) The inviolable right to life of every innocent human individual and the rights of the family and of the institution of marriage constitute fundamental moral values, because they concern the natural condition and integral vocation of the human person; at the same time they are constitutive elements of civil society and its order.

See Also: Catechism of the Catholic Church 2273.

Charter of the Rights of the Family
Holy See

Evangelium Vitae
Encyclical, John Paul II, 1995.

(3) Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the Church. Therefore every threat to human dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the Church's very heart; it cannot but affect her at the core of her faith in the Redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, and engage her in her mission of proclaiming the Gospel of life in all the world and to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15).

(4)...a new cultural climate is developing and taking hold, which gives crimes against life a new and-if possible-even more sinister character, giving rise to further grave concern: broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of the rights of individual freedom, and on this basis they claim not only exemption from punishment but even authorization by the State, so that these things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of health-care systems.

(13) Certainly, from the moral point of view contraception and abortion arespecifically different evils: the former contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the virtue of justice and directly violates the divine commandment "You shall not kill".

But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practised under the pressure of real- life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.

The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being.

(20) "How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?"¹ When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34).

Footnotes:

Catechism of the Catholic Church
1. Cf. CDF, Donum Vitae I,1.

2. Jer 1:5; cf. Job 10:8-12; Ps 22:10-11.

3. Ps. 139:15

4. Didache 2, 2: SCh 248, 148; cf. Ep. Barnabae 19, 5: PG 2, 777; Ad Diognetum 5, 6: PG 2, 1173; Tertullian, Apol. 9: PL 1, 319-320.

5. GS 51.

6. CDF, Donum Vitae III.

7. CDF, Donum Vitae III.

Gaudium et Spes
1. Cf. Wis 1:13; 2:23-24; Rom 5:21; 6:23; Jas 1:15

Donum Vitae
1. Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, no. 24.

2. Cf. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani generis: AAS 42 (1950), 575; Pope Paul VI, Professio fidei: AAS 60 (1968), 436.

3. Pope John XXIII, Encyclical Mater et magistra, III: AAS 53 (1961), 447; cf. Pope John Paul II, Discourse to priests participating in a seminar on "Responsible Procreation," September 17, 1983, Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, VI, 2 (1983), 562: "At the origin of each human person there is a creative act of God: no man comes into existence by chance; he is always the result of the creative love of God."

4. Cf. Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, no. 24.

5. Cf. Pope Pius XII, Discourse to the Saint Luke Medical-Biological Union, November 12, 1944: Discorsi e Radiomessaggi VI (1944-1945), 191-192.

6. Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, no. 51.

7. Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, no. 4: L'Osservatore Romano, November 25, 1983.

Evangelium Vitae
1. John Paul II, Address to the Participants at the Study Conference on "The Right to Life and Europe", 18 December 1987: Insegnamenti, X, 3 (1987), 1446-1447.