The Church's "No" to Abortion
By Fr. Frank Pavone
A physician told me the true story of a woman in a hospital prepared to have
an abortion. When the doctor noticed her diet was only vegetables, he asked why
she did not eat meat. The woman answered, "Because I don't like killing."
The Church clearly teaches what
common sense, at least commonly, understands: abortion is wrong because it kills
a human being.
The woman in the hospital did not "like" killing animals, but was willing to
kill her own child. Yet at the core of Church teaching on abortion is the truth
that human life is uniquely set apart from other life forms because of its
relationship with God the Creator. In his encyclical,
The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II asks,
"Why is life good?...The life which God gives man is quite different from
the life of all other living creatures, inasmuch as man, although formed from
the dust of the earth...is a manifestation of God in the world, a sign of his
presence, a trace of his glory... Man has been given a sublime dignity, based
on the intimate bond which unites him to his Creator: in man there shines
forth a reflection of God himself" (#34).
It is because human beings are created in the image and likeness of God that
the Church opposes all attacks on human life and dignity. The teaching against
abortion is rooted in the Church's rejection of all violence against the human
person (see Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World, Gaudium et Spes #27).
The only proper response to the human person is love. No individual or group
can be used or dominated by others. Before the moral law we are all absolutely
equal. (See The Gospel of Life #57, and The Splendor of Truth
#96).
In The Gospel of Life the Pope points out that we must pay special
attention to the abortion tragedy because it is an attack on the most vulnerable
and defenseless persons, because it is not only allowed but promoted as a
"right," and because it occurs within the family, the "sanctuary of life," which
should be the place of greatest love (see The Gospel of Life, #11).
When the Church says "Life is sacred," she means that life comes from God,
belongs to God, and returns to God as its ultimate fulfillment. In the abortion
controversy we are faced with the deep questions, "Who are we?" and "Whose are
we?"
The Church corrects the false answers that the world gives. We do not belong
to ourselves, as if all our "choices" were right just because we choose them. We
do not belong, in an absolute sense, to our parents, as if they could decide to
have us killed. Nor do we belong to the State, as if it could decide whether we
live or die.
No, we belong to God, who called us into being by His wisdom and love. The
right to life, then, is "inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act
from which the person took his origin" (see Instruction on Respect for Human
Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,
Donum Vitae
(SCDF,1987) III, and the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2273).
The Church reminds us that modern science makes it clear that a new human
life begins at conception (see
Declaration on Procured Abortion (SCDF,1974), #13, The Gospel of Life
#60). Yet some try to say that not all "human beings" are "human persons" with
rights. The Pope makes note of this and asks, "How could a human individual not
be a human person?" The teaching against abortion is, in any case, independent
of theories about ensoulment and the onset of personhood, precisely because
abortion challenges God's dominion over the entire process of human development,
and also because even when in doubt, the willingness to kill what is probably
human is the willingness to kill what is human (See The Gospel of Life
#60).
In a confirmation of the Church's constant teaching on abortion, the Pope
says in The Gospel of Life,
"Given such unanimity in the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition of the
Church, Paul VI was able to declare that this tradition is unchanged and
unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter
and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops - who on various occasions
have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit
dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this
doctrine - I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end
or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the
deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the
natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's
Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium" (#62).
It should be noted that the teaching "is based upon the natural law." It is
accessible to human reason, and is
not simply a "religious teaching." One cannot say "Catholics oppose
abortion; I am not a Catholic, so I don't have to be pro-life" any more than one
can say, "Catholics oppose stealing; I am not a Catholic, so I can steal."
Justice is not denominational.
The Pope also points out that abortion is wrong even if it is a means to a
good end. The best of intentions cannot make a direct abortion right.
The Vatican's summary of The
Gospel of Life points out that the wording of the Pope here reflects the
wording of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution On the Church
when that document describes the conditions under which the Church's Magisterium
teaches Christ's doctrine infallibly (Lumen Gentium #25).
Jesus Christ not only reveals God to us, but He reveals us to ourselves. By
His life and especially His death, He shows that as He was a man "for others,"
so we too find our fulfillment in giving ourselves away.
"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends"
(Jn.15:13). Abortion is the opposite of love. Love says, "I sacrifice myself for
the good of the other person." Abortion says, "I sacrifice the other person for
the good of myself."
Christ is Life and He is Love. The Church is firmly pro-life not because it
is a "male-dominated hierarchy," but precisely because she is feminine. She is
the Bride of Christ, and the Mother of the faithful. We are her children, and
hence we are the people of Life. That is way abortion can have no place among
us. That is why we are sent into the world to eliminate it (see The Gospel of
Life #78). And life will prevail, because death has been conquered in
Christ. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your
sting?...Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ" (1Cor.15:55,57).
