Catholic Transcript Online

October is traditionally celebrated as “Respect Life Month.” Every day of the year should be devoted to respecting life, but we understand the significance of the emphasis. This year, October is the threshold to elections at the national, state, and local levels, so the autumn air is electrically charged with debate on crucial issues. Some clarifications are in order.

Despite what some politicians – whether office-holders or candidates for office – may say, the official teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion has not changed over the centuries. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The 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.” (2271)

The Catechism states further:

“From the first moment of 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.” (2270)

As I have said repeatedly, civilization enjoys its finest hours when it is defending and supporting innocent human life in all its stages, particularly at its weakest and most vulnerable, from conception (fertilization) to natural death.

It may be true that in the Middle Ages, inadequate theories about embryology led some theologians to speculate that specifically human life capable of receiving an immortal soul might not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy. In Canon Law, these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, but the Church’s moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.

Some may say that the embryo is like the tiniest piece of straw. No matter how infinitesimal in size it may be, we were all that size at one point in our lives. We were never straw.

Again we hear politicians say, “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I do not want to impose my personal beliefs on my constituents.” Why are they personally opposed? If it is because abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, they are held to a higher responsibility. Besides, we would hope that virtually every political decision they make is based on their moral convictions. Why is this one different?

More than faith is involved. For more than a century and a half, scientists have been saying that a new human individual comes into being from the union of sperm and egg at fertilization. Three-D sonar imaging and other technologies have brought home in moving ways the growth of this distinct human being. Biology is involved. The natural law is involved.

I repeat the invitation I have offered to politicians at various times in the past to have a conversation on these and related matters.

Of course, we must never lose sight of the pregnant woman who is beset with all sorts of anxiety over the moral choice of bringing her baby to birth. She may be sure that the Church offers significant help to her: financial, medical, counseling, educational, etc. Our pregnancy care centers, social service agencies, and hospitals are there to help. Alternatives to abortion are available, and adoption is an option.

Occasionally it is said that the Catholic Church is focused only on one issue, the life of the infant in the womb, to the neglect of life after birth. What institution after government provides more social services, educational services, and health care services to people of all ages and backgrounds than the Church? Who provides more pastoral services?

Who advocates on more issues involving human rights? It is simply true, at the same time, that the right to life is foundational to all the other human rights. The birth document of our country, the Declaration of Independence, affirms as a self-evident truth that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are the right to life (first), liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The number of abortions in the United States has grown by tens of millions over the last 35 years. It is a culture of death that is destructive of infants in the womb, of mothers, of fathers, and of the very fabric of our country. We are uncomfortable with it and we do not want to speak about it. People of good will everywhere, nevertheless, are conscious of the categorical imperative of moving closer to a culture of life. May the clarifications offered here be helpful in that development.