Abortion and the Catholic Church

The official teachings of the ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 oppose all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy a zygote, blastocyst, embryo 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." However, the Church 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 1397 §2 of the 1983 ''Code of Canon Law'' imposes automatic (''latae sententiae'') excommunication on Latin Catholics who actually procure an abortion, if they fulfill the conditions for being subject to such a sanction. Eastern Catholics are not subject to automatic excommunication, but by Canon 1450 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches 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 teaching that abortion is immoral, the Catholic Church also generally makes public statements and takes actions in opposition to its legality.

Many, and in some Western countries most, Catholics hold views on abortion that differ from the official position of the Catholic Church. Views range from anti-abortion positions that allow some exceptions to positions that accept the general legality and morality of abortion. There is a correlation between Mass attendance and agreement with the official teaching of the Church on the issue; that is, frequent Mass-goers are far more likely to be anti-abortion, while those who attend less often (or rarely or never) are more likely to be in favor of abortion rights under certain circumstances.

Early writings

According to ''Respect For Unborn Human Life: The Church's Constant Teaching'', a document released by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities, the Catholic Church has condemned procured abortion as immoral since the 1st century.

Early Christian writings rejecting abortion are the ''Didache'', the '' Epistle of Barnabas'', the '' Apocalypse of Peter'', and the works of early writers such as Tertullian, Athenagoras of Athens,Frank K. Flinn, J. Gordon Melton, ''Encyclopedia of Catholicism'' (Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Religions 2007
), p. 4 Clement of Alexandria and Basil of Caesarea. The earliest Church legislation did not make a distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses, as was done in the Greek Septuagint version of ; this position can be found in the writing of early Church Fathers such as Basil of Caesarea and early Church council canons ( Elvira, Ancyra).M. Therese Lysaught, Joseph Kotva, Stephen E. Lammers, Allen Verhey, ''On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives on Medical Ethics'' (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 2012
), p. 676Michèle Goyens, Pieter de Leemans, An Smets, ''Science Translated: Latin and Vernacular Translations of Scientific Treatises in Medieval Europe'' (Leuven University Press 2008
), p. 384, 399

In the 4th and 5th centuries, some writers such as Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor held that human life already began at conception, others such as Lactantius – following Aristotle's view – spoke rather of the soul that was "infused" in the body after forty days or more, and those such as Jerome and Augustine of Hippo left the mystery of the timing of the infusion to God.

Augustine of Hippo "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 , and did not classify as murder the abortion of an "unformed" fetus since he thought that it could not be said with certainty whether the fetus had already received a soul. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops considers Augustine's reflections on abortion to be of little value in the present day because of the limitations of the science of embryology at that time.

Later writers such as John Chrysostom and Caesarius of Arles, as well as later Church councils (e.g. Lerida and Braga II), also condemned abortion as "gravely wrong", without making a distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses nor defining precisely in what stage of pregnancy human life began.

Changing beliefs about the moment the embryo gains a human soul have led to changes in canon law in the classification of the sin of abortion. In particular, scholars such as John M. Riddle, Joan Cadden, and Cyril C. Means, Jr. have written that prior to the 19th century most Catholic authors did not regard abortion before "quickening" or "ensoulment" as sinful, and in fact "abortion" was commonly understood to mean post-quickening termination of pregnancy.John M. Riddle, ''Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West'', Harvard University Press, 1997. Historian John Noonan writes that some Catholic clerics saw nothing wrong with compiling lists of known abortifacient herbs and discovering new ones.John Noonan, ''Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists'', Harvard University Press, 1965 (2nd edition 1986). In the 13th century, physician and cleric Peter of Spain, who according to some sources became Pope John XXI in 1276, wrote a book called ''Thesaurus Pauperum'' (''Treasure of the Poor'') containing a long list of early-stage abortifacients, including rue, pennyroyal, and other mints. Similarly, the medicinal writings of Hildegard of Bingen included abortifacients such as tansy.

Some theologians, such as John Chrysostom and Thomas Sanchez, believed that post-quickening abortion was less sinful than deliberate contraception,Angus McLaren, ''A History of Contraception from Antiquity to the Present Day'', Basil Blackwell, 1990.Peter Biller, ''The Measure of Multitude: Population in Medieval Thought'', Oxford University Press, 2000. and Chrysostom believed that contraception was worse than murder.

As Koblitz writes,Ann Hibner Koblitz, ''Sex and Herbs and Birth Control: Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages'', Kovalevskaia Fund, 2014.

Belief in delayed animation

Following Aristotle's view, it was commonly held by some "leading Catholic thinkers" in early Church history that a human being did not come into existence as such immediately on conception, but only some weeks later. Abortion was viewed as a sin, but not as murder, until the embryo was animated by a human soul. In ''On Virginal Conception and Original Sin'' 7, 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." A few decades after Anselm's death, a Catholic collection of canon law, in the ''Decretum Gratiani'', stated that "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body."

Even when Church law, in line with the theory of delayed ensoulment, assigned different penalties to earlier and later abortions, abortion at any stage was considered a grave evil by some commentators. Thus Thomas Aquinas, who accepted the Aristotelian 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. By comparison, anal and oral sex were treated much more harshly, as was intentional homicide.John Connery, ''Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective'', Loyola University Press, 1997.

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" should suffer the same punishments as "true murderers and assassins who have actually and really committed murder." 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). According to Riddle, "The bull had a lifetime of about two-and-a-half years and was weak in influence. The succeeding pope countered it and returned to the traditional position that contraception was a sin and abortion a crime, but that abortion could not occur until after the fortieth day, when the fetus was ensouled."

Sixtus's successor, Pope Gregory XIV, recognizing that the law was not producing the hoped-for effects, withdrew it in 1591 by publishing new regulations in the apostolic constitution ''Sedes Apostolica'' (published on 31 May 1591), limiting the punishments to abortion of a "formed" fetus:Nicholas Terpstra, ''Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence'' (Johns Hopkins University Press 2010
), p. 91 "When abortion was neither 'an issue of homicide or of an animate fetus,' Gregory thought it 'more useful' to return to the less-harsh penalties or early abortionof the holy canons and profane laws: those who abort an ''inanimatus'' oullesswill not be guilty of true homicide because they have not killed a human being in actuality; clerics involved in abortions will have committed mortal sin but will not incur irregularity." After 1591, Gregory's ''Sedes apostolica'' "remained in effect for almost three centuries, being revised only in 1869 by Pius IX."

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 was incurred automatically through abortion at any stage of pregnancy. An excerpt can be foun
here

The 1917 ''Code of Canon Law'' codified Pius IX's bull.

Discussions about possible justifying circumstances

In the Middle Ages, many Church commentators condemned all abortions, but the 14th-century Dominican John of Naples is reported to have been the first to make an 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,A. Sabetti, "The Catholic Church and Obstetrical Science" in ''American Ecclesiastical Review'', New Series, Vol. III (August 1895), pp.128-132
/ref> 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).Charles E. Curran, ''The Catholic Moral Tradition Today: A Synthesis'', pp. 201-202
/ref>

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."

Church doctrine

Unintentional abortion

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 uterine cancer 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 a side effect. The death of the fetus is an undesirable but unavoidable consequence.

Ectopic pregnancy

An ectopic pregnancy is one of a few cases where the foreseeable death of an embryo is allowed, since it is categorized as an indirect abortion. 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.

The use of methotrexate and salpingectomy remains controversial in the Catholic medical community, and the Church has not taken an official stance on these interventions. The Catholic Health Association of the United States, which issues guidelines for Catholic hospitals and health systems there, allows both procedures to be used. The argument that these methods amount to an indirect abortion revolves around the idea that the removal of the Fallopian tube or, in the case of methotrexate, the chemical destruction of the trophoblastic cells (those which go on to form the placenta), does not constitute a direct act upon the developing embryo. Individual hospitals and physicians, however, may choose to prohibit these procedures if they personally interpret these acts as a direct abortion. Despite the lack of an official pronouncement by the Church on these treatments, in a 2012 survey of 1,800 Ob/Gyns who work in religious hospitals, only 2.9% of respondents reported feeling constrained in their treatment options by their employers, suggesting that in practice, physicians and healthcare institutions generally choose to treat ectopic pregnancies.

Embryos

The Church considers the destruction of any embryo to be equivalent to abortion, and thus opposes embryonic stem cell research.

Sanctions

Catholics who procure a completed abortion are subject to a ''latae sententiae'' excommunication.Code of Canon Law, canon 1398
That means that the excommunication is not imposed by an authority or trial (as with a ''ferendae sententiae'' penalty); rather, being expressly established by canon 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 Joseph Cardinal 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 the Eucharist or risk being denied it until they end such activity. This position is based on Canon 915 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and has also been supported, in a personal capacity, by Archbishop Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, the former Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. Pope Francis reaffirmed this position in March 2013, when he stated that " eoplecannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals."

Forgiveness 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 had an abortion. Pope John Paul II wrote:

On the occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015, Pope Francis announced that all priests (during the Jubilee yearending November 20, 2016) will be allowed in the Sacrament of Penance to refrain from enforcing the penalty of excommunication for abortion, which had been reserved to bishops and certain priests who were given such mandate by their bishop. This policy was made permanent by an apostolic letter titled ''Misericordia et misera'' (Mercy and Misery), which was issued on November 21, 2016.

Recent statements of the Church's position

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." This follows from the fact that probabilism may not be used where human life ''may'' be at stake; the ''Catholic Catechism'' teaches that the embryo must be treated from conception "as" (Latin: ''tamquam,'' "as if") a human person.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia concludes:

Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center

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