“Sometimes an expression of refined hypocrisy is used to name induced abortion: it is said to be the interruption of pregnancy (…) The gallows or the garrote could be called an interruption of breathing, and a couple of minutes suffice. When an abortion is procured or someone is hanged, a person is killed. And it is a further hypocrisy to consider that there is a difference depending on where along the road the coming child is to be found, at what distance of weeks or months from birth it will be surprised by death. It is often asserted that abortion is licit when it is judged that the one who is to be born (the one who was to be born) would probably be abnormal, physically or psychically. But this implies that whoever is abnormal ought not to live, since that condition is not probable but certain. And the same rule would have to be extended to whoever becomes abnormal through accident, illness, or old age. And if one holds that conviction, one must maintain it with all its consequences” [1].
The very affirmation of the right to conscious and responsible motherhood is annulled, since such motherhood is pursued by interrupting it.
Abortion is talked about and even debated, yet at times clear ideas are lacking; this is why an attempt is made below to respond to some of the main arguments that supporters of abortion raise.
1 MYTH. No one is in favor of abortion…, but sometimes it is the only way out.
REALITY. This myth flatters the ears, but it is not true. By affirming that one is aware of the reality of abortion, the aim is to justify it as the only way out of the distressing situation posed by an unwanted pregnancy, while ignoring that the worst distress for a woman will come after the abortion.
Dr. Maria Simon, a psychologist at the University Gynecological Clinic of Würzburg (Germany), has conducted a study of the psychological consequences of abortion. The author herself presents the results of this research. She notes that after an abortion the following psychological consequences accumulate: feelings of remorse and guilt, mood swings and depression, unprovoked weeping, states of fear and nightmares. Frequently these phenomena are accompanied by physical disturbances, such as alterations of the heart rhythm or of blood pressure, migraine, disorders of the digestive system, or cramps in the abdomen. Immediately after the abortion and for a long time afterward, the nightmares have as their theme dead little children. 52% of those surveyed are troubled by the sight of pregnant women because they remind them of their own aborted children. In 70% of the women the thought arises again and again of how things would be if the aborted child were alive now. Moreover, the surveys yield proportions of up to 50% of unions that break up after an abortion [2].
Dr. Nathanson reached a similar conclusion. The woman who underwent this procedure, in time, presented symptoms not only in her physical aspect (headache, gastralgia, etc.) but also in the emotional one (insomnia, anxiety attacks, depressive crises, alcohol abuse, frigidity, etc.). What has been mentioned so far is stated bearing in mind that the experience of induced abortion can generate two possibilities: no psychopathological effect or some effect. In the first case these will be patients with a certain degree of psychic insufficiency or a personality disorder of the sociopathic type, and who, for that very reason, lack awareness of their own conduct and of its significance. By contrast, the experience of induced abortion in a normal personality is associated with a denial of guilt. In the face of a case of post-abortion syndrome (PAS), a therapeutic and understanding attitude is called for, as well as spiritual help [3].
A study funded by the government of Finland confirmed that women who undergo an abortion run four times the risk of dying as those who continue their pregnancy and give birth. The study analyzed more than nine thousand cases. Dr. David C. Reardon, who was in charge of the research, explained that “this is an impeccable study, based on truthful information” which “confirms that the fact that abortion is more dangerous than childbirth is not something that can be doubted.” The researchers of the statistical analysis unit of the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health examined the death certificates of all women of reproductive age (between 15 and 49 years of age) who died between 1987 and 1994, that is, some 9,129 women. Then they examined the national database to identify any pregnancy-related event occurring in the year prior to death. The researchers found that, compared with the women who carried their pregnancy to term, those who aborted in the year before their death were: 60% more likely to die of natural causes; seven times more prone to suicide; four times more likely to die in accidents; and 14 times more likely to be victims of homicide. The researchers believe that the high rate of deaths related to accidents and homicides is connected to the higher rates of suicidal or high-risk behaviors. Reardon, who published an article on the matter in the journal Post-Abortion Review, denounced that “although this important study was published in the most important medium of Scandinavian medicine, it was completely ignored by the American press.” “The entire body of medical literature clearly shows that abortion only harms the physical and mental health of women,” Reardon affirmed. “This is hidden from women. No one tells them that giving birth improves feminine health, not only in comparison with those who have aborted but with those who have not become pregnant,” he added. “If those who promote abortion are really pro-choice, they would allow women to know the real risks of abortion [4].
Thus, resorting to abortion does not signify a true solution, but quite the contrary; afterward it becomes a grave problem.
On the other hand, there always exist alternatives less violent than abortion. In this regard, the national statistics of the Center for Aid to Women, after 11 years of service, have reached the same conclusion.
The reasons why a woman decides to resort to abortion are the following:
1) 51.6% social
2) 22.8% economic
3) 14.3% family-related
4) 5.7% health
5) 3.3% personal
6) 2.2% rape
The forms of aid offered to help them overcome their problem without endangering their own life and that of their child are: educational guidance on the value of their person and self-esteem, food provisions, a post-partum job placement service, a partial scholarship for prenatal care and delivery in public and private institutions, shelter and support in dealing with the family, referral to health institutions and care for high-risk pregnancies, psychological assistance for the treatment of post-rape syndrome, and referral to organizations that can place babies for adoption [5].
Thanks to that aid, hundreds of babies have been saved from death, for the mothers usually choose their child.
But even so, some people encourage women to opt instead for abortion, presenting it as the “easier” path or as the “only way out.” Yet those same people ignore or seem to forget that abortion is not the “only way out,” but the “worst way out.”
2 MYTH. Abortion should be allowed in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, because it traumatizes the woman.
REALITY. Experience has shown that if it is allowed to be born, many unwanted children become greatly loved. It is even likely that we ourselves were not, at first, wanted children, but we were welcomed.
Stan Sinberg confesses in The Baltimore Sun that he is perplexed, as a supporter of the right to abortion, from the day he learned that he was nearly aborted: at a gathering his own mother confessed to him that upon learning she was pregnant, she tried to abort him; his father said he would try to find someone to perform the abortion, and when he did not find anyone —or did not look— they had him. Thus, he owed his existence to a pro-life social legislation; he lives thanks to the fact that his mother did not have the right to abortion [6]. How many will owe their lives to such legislation! It is not easy to find out.
The woman who goes to an abortion clinic can be certain that she will not be properly informed about the traumas she may suffer years later if she makes the decision to abort.
But at bottom, in many supporters of abortion there exists the conviction that every inclination, if it is entertained, has a right to be satisfied, regardless of whether the claim is just or not, and that is not valid. So, for example, faced with the desire someone might have to kill his neighbor, it should not be carried out merely because it runs counter to the latter’s wish to preserve his life, but first of all because it is unjust to do so. Therefore, by what right is life denied to one who has committed no crime?
3 MYTH. The embryo is merely a mass of cells. Properly human life begins from the moment brain activity is registered, and in the fetus this occurs only after many months.
REALITY. Modern biology teaches that parents are joined to their offspring by a material link, which is DNA. In each reproductive cell this filament, roughly one meter in length, is cut into pieces (23 in the human being). Each segment is carefully wound and packed (as happens in a cassette), in such a way that under the microscope it appears as a rod, a chromosome [7].
It is exclusive to human beings to possess 23 pairs of chromosomes in their cells.
Genetics teaches that from the moment of fertilization there exists a human being with all the genetic material that will develop over time; something similar to how a cassette tape that has physical modifications makes one hear the jarabe tapatío when placed in a cassette player, even though neither the tape nor the device has a mariachi, nor guitars, nor trumpets.
approximate age and characteristics
1 day.- 1 cell with 23 pairs of chromosomes upon the union of the germ cells
3-4 days.- It moves toward the uterus
5-9 days.- It implants itself in the uterus
10-15 days.- It suspends its mother’s menstrual cycle; it measures only 2 mm
20 days.- The brain, the nervous system, and the spinal column are established
21 days.- The heart begins to beat, and will continue beating until death
28 days.- Muscles form and arms and legs appear
30 days.- It is 10,000 times larger than the first cell; it now measures 4.5 mm
40 days.- Brain waves are detected
42 days.- It begins to produce blood cells. This would be the mother’s second menstruation were she not pregnant
60 days.- It measures 3 centimeters and has electrical brain impulses
To accept that after fertilization a new human being has begun to exist is not a matter of taste or opinion. Can anyone seriously maintain that what is human today was not human yesterday when it was in the uterus? Is what is extracted from the uterus when an abortion is performed a thing or a living being? And if it is a living being, to what species does it belong?
And in case of “doubt,” the only reasonable attitude would be to care for the pregnancy, and not to destroy it. So, for example: if someone goes hunting with a friend and hears a noise, he does not shoot, in the doubt as to whether it is a wild boar or his companion who snores quite similarly.
There is no adult human being who has not previously passed through being an embryo, a fetus, and a baby. That is why it is said that if the mother’s womb were transparent, induced abortion would be seen in a different way.
Common sense —which needs no scientific knowledge— tells us that what is carried in the maternal womb is something alive; nevertheless some doubt that it is a human being, but, if it is not a human being, what kind of being is it? If one did not have the conviction that it is a human being, why do the pro-abortionists seek to interrupt its growth? And why does everyone expect the birth of a human being?
Experience shows that it truly is a human being. When labor comes on, it occurs to no one to call a veterinarian in case a little gorilla or a crocodile is born; nor does one turn to a botanist, in case a marigold flower is delivered [8].
4 MYTH. Abortion must be allowed because a woman has the right to dispose of her body.
REALITY. In the case of abortion, one is not manipulating one’s own body, but rather ending the life of another person over whom one has no right, much less the right to eliminate that person. Moreover, the right to one’s own body has its limits; for example, it is not permitted to drive while intoxicated, to sell oneself as a slave, or to undress in a public thoroughfare, and why is this? Because being owners of our own body does not justify any and every action.
In recent years, sciences such as genetics, immunology, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) have each demonstrated, on their own account, that mother and child are distinct beings. From her he receives nourishment and space to live. Indeed, the very possibility of IVF represents conclusive proof that the embryo does not constitute an appendage of the mother.
With the woman who has consented to end the life of her own child, a permissive society may perhaps find no great difficulty in letting that act pass; the worst of it is that she herself will not easily forgive it. And if she does effectively overcome it and silence her conscience, she does so by dint of numbing herself, of destroying her sense of values, of unsexing herself, of dehumanizing herself [9].
In fact, in principle, no kind of normal woman persists in supporting the death of her children; in any case she would seek other non-violent or less brutal alternatives.
In an interview with Norma McCorvey, the woman whose case —in which she took part under the pseudonym Jane Roe— gave rise to the Supreme Court ruling Roe versus Wade (1973), which liberalized abortion in the U.S.A., she remarked that in 1991 she began to work in an abortion clinic and came to know the reality of abortion at close hand. In 1995 she announced that she had changed her mind, and said: I know very few people who can witness an abortion and afterward go on being in favor of it. To the question of whether there are not among them sincere persons who think that in this way they help women, she answered: some perhaps wish to convince themselves that they are working for a good cause, but for them it is only an intellectual debate. All they want is to advance their cause. If they truly felt something for women, they would try to help them in another way [10].
The case is also paradoxical, because this woman, associated with the death of millions of the unborn, has never had an abortion. McCorvey was a single woman, 21 years old, pregnant for the third time, poor and uneducated. When the ruling came out in favor of abortion, her daughter had already been born, so she gave her up for adoption, just as with the two previous girls. She is now against abortion at any period of pregnancy [11].
There is an increasing struggle against domestic violence, so one may ask: is there any worse violence than killing a child in the maternal womb?
5 MYTH. Let the doctors decide about abortion; they know whether it is advisable or not to perform it in each case.
REALITY. Doctors undergo a long period of higher education and technical practice. They learn to diagnose diseases and bring the sick person specialized expertise. For rendering these services they are compensated with payment, with special recognition, and with the privilege of invading another’s body with authority [12]. Nevertheless, that does not grant them the right to decide whether an abortion is advisable or not, for the interests in permitting it may be manifold.
For years there has existed in the United States the business called the “abortion industry.” Annually around 1.3 million abortions are performed in that country, and an average of 350 dollars is charged for each one. Carol Everett was involved in this business in the Dallas, Texas area from 1977 until 1983, as director of four clinics and owner of two of them. At that time the price ranged between 185 and 1,250 dollars according to the stage of advancement of the pregnancy. She personally came to earn 150,000 dollars a year. Later Mrs. Everett withdrew from the abortion industry because of a religious conversion [13].
The American gynecologist George Flesh decided to abandon the practice of abortion when he began to suffer anxiety attacks, with nausea, palpitations, and vertigo. He himself explains why, in an article: “I was no longer proud of being a surgeon. When I came home from work and embraced my children, I felt unworthy that God had blessed me with their smiling faces. At the beginning of my professional practice, a married couple came and asked me to perform an abortion for them. Since the patient’s cervix was rigid, I could not dilate it to carry out the operation. I told her to come back the following week, after which the cervix would be softer. The couple returned and told me they had changed their minds. I assisted at the birth of their child seven months later. Years later, I was able to play with little Jeffrey in the swimming pool of the tennis club of which his parents and I were members. He was a lovely and happy child. I was horrified to think that a mere technical obstacle prevented me from ending his life in formation (…) Every morning, when I embraced my children, I would begin to think about the aspirator I would use two hours later. It was an emotional strain I could not endure” [14].
The question of induced abortion is not something the doctor should resolve, just as the death penalty is not within the competence of engineers by the mere fact that the electric chair is used.
6 MYTH. It is proven that allowing abortion reduces the crime rate.
REALITY. A controversy arose after news of a study asserting the beneficial effects of abortion for society. As reported by the International Herald Tribune (8/10/99), two researchers —Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, and John Donohue, a law professor at Stanford University— have claimed that the legalization of abortion caused a decrease in crime. Given that the incidence of abortion during the seventies was disproportionately high among poor women of minority groups, the total number of young people who might have problems with the law is much smaller. Levitt declared that abortion offers mothers an alternative to not having children who are going to face a hard life. Since those children would have been born into an environment of poverty and lack of maternal love, they would have had a greater probability of coming into conflict with the police. The study of the two academics even asserts that abortion may have been the factor responsible for half of the reduction in crime from 1991 to 1997. Areas where there were high rates of abortion have experienced a more significant decrease in crime, according to the study. The authors were not satisfied with other explanations such as the increase in the number of persons imprisoned and greater toughness on the part of the police to account for the decrease in crimes. They compared the abortion rates from 1973 to 1976 and crime from 1985 to 1997. The ten states with the lowest level of abortion saw the number of homicides rise by 16.9% from 1985 to 1997. Meanwhile the ten states with the highest incidence of abortion experienced a decrease in homicides of 31.5%. In the days following the release of that news, the Pro-Life Infonet published various studies with the reactions to the thesis on abortion and crime. The director of a pro-life group in the state of Massachusetts, Maryclare Flynn, commented that “it is a disgrace to suggest that the 40 million children who have been aborted since 1973 would have become criminals. The study is taking for granted that poor women and those of the minorities are raising criminals.” An editorial in the newspaper Boston Herald criticized the study, noting that it stands at the same level as the worst assertions of racist groups. The newspaper Chicago Tribune stresses that little by little the words “tragic” and “regrettable” are being eliminated from descriptions of abortion, and that they will perhaps be replaced by expressions such as “socially useful.” Meanwhile the Christian Science Monitor affirmed that it is simply preferable to enjoy the good news of a decline in crime and not to accept that someone decides to rob a bank simply because his mother did not love him. The London Independent added that even considering the researchers’ analysis to be correct, no useful policy can be derived from it. The newspaper observes that although we could put an end to hunger, poverty, misery, and crime simply by aborting everyone, it would constitute an absurd idea. Michael Geer, of the Family Institute in the state of Pennsylvania, described the study as a new tool against crime, “preventive capital punishment.” Moreover, while it may be true that some potential criminals have been eliminated by abortion, Geer asks, “how many scientists and geniuses will we have sacrificed?” Alan Keyes responded to the study by saying that in the seventies it was obvious that abortion was used as a weapon against blacks. Before long, Keyes observed, blacks will lose their position as the principal minority in the United States, and this is due almost entirely to the phenomenon of abortion. The commentator Cal Thomas recalled that in the seventies the then pro-life black leader Jesse Jackson and other blacks regarded abortion as a means employed by whites to reduce social expenditures. In this way there is no need to feed and educate so many poor people. It is like asking ourselves: would killing all the street children improve the country’s per capita income? This question would carry an implicit message: to qualify murder in advance as something good, or at least as a different sort of deed. At the moment of fertilization a biological entity distinct from the father and the mother begins, just as afterward, when the new being is born, it will need a special environment to continue living, as you, as I, and as all humans need oxygen, water, and food in order to survive. Attorney Juan Bernardi concludes with this phrase: “There is no point in asking whether abortion reduces crime, because abortion itself is a crime” [15].
7 MYTH. Let abortion be legal for those who do want it; if someone disagrees, let him not do it, but let him not try to impose his criterion on others. Besides, the current legal regime that penalizes abortion is in disuse; no one is prosecuted for abortion.
REALITY. Laws fulfill a particular function: to achieve a State of Law. In declaring a precept to be advisable, a social criterion of behavior is posited, which, in fact, may work to the benefit of the citizens’ ends or not. In the case of abortion, it is clear that not censuring it works to the detriment of the human person.
Criminal law does the same; it always imposes convictions. It might even be affirmed that it would be inconceivable if it renounced doing so; it would be as absurd, from the standpoint of its object, to give way to criminal sanction without being convinced that the good protected deserves it, as to leave the fulfillment of its norms to the free choice of each subject [16].
Nevertheless, it is common to hear, in a certain political milieu, that one is in favor of life, but that one supports abortion out of respect for those who hold other points of view. What they do not mention is that this respect for another’s opinion has its limits, because no one would support a law that protected everyone’s life but permitted anyone to deprive another of his own.
Abortion is always a violent act that should not be encouraged, and whoever is indifferent to violence favors the one who exercises it. In this, as in other cases, whoever seeks a neutral position or supports free choice really favors abortion. That same person would accept that, for example, in Nazi Germany this reasoning had been made: I am neutral, but if you want to carry out the genocide, that is your affair; face the consequences, but you choose.
Following the logic of the myth one could also say: if you do not want to rape, do not rape, but do not impose your criterion on others—how does that sound?
In the Dred Scott case in the U.S.A., the Supreme Court of Justice, through Justice Roger B. Taney, confirmed and extended slavery; it declared that blacks were not persons and therefore could be slaves. Today Taney’s position is considered the worst constitutional decision. But there is a curious fact. Many years earlier, Taney had freed his own slaves. Today we could say that he was personally against slavery, but that he did not want to impose his views on others. Taney’s contradiction —that of opposing in private, but publicly tolerating, a widespread social practice— is the position preferred with respect to abortion by those who declare themselves pro-choice [17].
One claims to be pro-choice—to choose that an innocent should die. Hence the question: is abortion a valid choice of the mother’s? Can one perhaps “choose” the fate of the neighbor, of the mother-in-law, or of the brother? Why should one be able to choose the fate of one’s child?
Experience also shows that when respect for life is lost, any right is easily transgressed. John S. Aird, a demographer who worked for nearly 30 years in the United States Census Bureau, comments that since 1979 it was forbidden to have more than one child in China, and that this demographic policy has been applied by means ranging from threats and fines to forced abortions and sterilizations [18].
8 MYTH. Abortion is a matter of one’s own conscience, a personal, intimate question, in which neither legislation, nor religion, nor anyone except the mother herself should intervene.
REALITY. Although we all ought to follow our own conscience, its role is not to create the truth; and in particular, with respect to abortion, it is not a matter of one’s own conscience, a personal, intimate question in which no one should intervene, because it concretely affects a person, the unborn child, who is led to death.
One must not lose sight of the fact that whoever aborts ends the life, the liberty, the intimacy, and the conscience of another person; for that very reason, when the human life of the unborn is defended, one is not against the woman, but in her favor, since it is statistically proven that for every two abortions, one was of the female sex. By protecting life from conception, it is established that no woman may be assaulted, not even in her mother’s womb.
If campaigns are carried out in favor of ecological awareness, how much more must we do for human beings.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta understood this and explained it clearly: by promoting respect for the unborn human being as a condition for social peace. Below are transcribed some paragraphs of her words at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. (2-4-94):
“I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept those elderly parents of sons and daughters who had placed them in an institution and, perhaps, had forgotten them. I saw that in that house all those aged people had everything: good food, a comfortable place, television, everything. But they were all looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on his face.
“I turned to the Sister and asked: Why is it that these people who have every comfort here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why do they not smile? (I am so accustomed to seeing the smiles of our people; even those who are dying smile.) And the Sister said: It is like this almost every day. They are waiting, they have the hope that a son or a daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten. And see, this neglect of loving brings spiritual poverty. Perhaps in our own family we have someone who feels lonely, who feels ill, who feels troubled. Are we there? Are we willing to give until it hurts in order to be with our families, or do we put our own interests first? These are the questions we must ask ourselves (…) We must remember that love begins at home, and we must remember that the future of humanity passes through the family.
“I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given over to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it so, when those in the West have so many more things than those in the East? And the answer was: Because there is no one in the family to receive them. Our children depend on us for everything: their health, their nutrition, their security, their coming to know and love God. For all this, they look to us with trust and hope. But often fathers and mothers are so busy that they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married or have failed in their marriage. And so the children go out into the streets and become involved in drugs or other things. We are speaking of love of the child, which is where love and peace have to begin. These are the things that break the peace.
“But I feel that today the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion, because it is a war against the child, the direct killing of an innocent child, murdered by his own mother. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we must remind ourselves that love means being ready to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion must be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts of her plans, or of her free time, so as to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he may be, must also give until it hurts.
“Through abortion the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, through abortion, the father is told that he need not take any responsibility for the child he has brought into the world. The father will probably place other women in the same predicament. So abortion only leads to more abortions.
“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
“Many people are very, very concerned about the children of India, about the children of Africa, where quite a few die of hunger, and things of that sort. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned about the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is why it is the greatest destroyer of peace today: abortion, which brings people to such blindness.
“And this is why I plead in India and plead everywhere: Let us value children anew. The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things, to love and to be loved (…) we must value children anew so that they may be the center of our care and concern.
“(…) We are combating abortion with adoption, caring for the mother and adopting her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have told clinics, hospitals, and police stations: Please do not destroy the child; we will take it. So we always have someone to say to the mother in trouble: Come, we will take care of you, we will give your child a home. And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have children (…)
“Please do not kill the child. I want the child. Please give me that child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give it to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved more than 3,000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adoptive parents and have grown up so full of love and gladness!
I know that couples have to plan their family, and for that there is natural family planning. The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, by means of contraception, a husband or a wife is doing something to himself or herself. This turns the attention toward oneself and so destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and the wife must turn their attention toward the other, as happens in natural family planning, and not toward themselves, as happens with contraception. Once living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
“I also know that there are great problems in the world, that many couples do not love one another enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us not fall into the worst problem of all, which is to destroy love. And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.
“The poor are a great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching him natural family planning and said: You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning, because it is nothing other than self-control springing from love for one another. And what this poor person said is very true. These poor people perhaps have nothing to eat, perhaps have no house to live in, but even so they can be great people when they are spiritually rich.
“When I pick up someone from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is imprisoned, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been cast out of society, that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome. And abortion, which frequently follows contraception, causes people to be spiritually poor, and that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.
“Those who are materially poor can be wonderful people. One night we went out and picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in the most terrible condition. I said to the sisters: You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worst. So I did for her everything that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was a beautiful smile on her face. She took my hands, while saying only a single word: Thank you, and she died.
“I could not help examining my conscience before her. And I asked: What would I say if I were in her place? And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said: I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am suffering, or something. But she gave me much more—she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face. Then there was the man we had picked up from the drain, half eaten by worms, and after we had brought him to the house, he only said, ‘I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, loved and cared for.’ Then, after we had removed all the worms from his body, all he said, with a great smile, was: Sister, I am going to the house of God, and he died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man who could speak thus without blaming anyone, without comparing anything. Like an angel; this is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich even when they are materially poor.
“We are not social workers. Perhaps we are doing social work in the eyes of some people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we bring the presence of God to their family, because families that pray together stay together. There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we, with our prayers, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.
“If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all its problems, these problems will never discourage us. We must always remember what God tells us in the Scriptures: Even if a mother could forget the child in her womb —something impossible, but even if she could forget it— I will never forget you.
“And so it is that I am here conversing with you. I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin to love there. Bring the good news to your own people first. And inquire about your nearest neighbors. Do you know who they are?
“I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor with a Hindu family. A gentleman came to our house and said: Mother Teresa, there is a family that has not eaten for a long time. Do something. So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children, their eyes shining with hunger. I do not know whether you have ever seen hunger. But I see it very frequently. And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her and went out. When she returned, I asked her: Where did you go? What did you do? And she gave me a very simple answer: They too are hungry. What struck me was what she knew—and who are they? A Muslim family. I did not bring more rice that night, because I wanted them, Hindus and Muslims, to enjoy the joy of sharing.
“But there were those children, radiant with gladness, sharing the joy and peace with their mother because she had love to give until it hurts. And you see that this is where love begins, at home, in the family.
“So, as the example this family shows, God will never forget us, and there is something you and I can always do. We can keep the joy of loving Jesus in our hearts, and share that joy with everyone we come in contact with. Let us reach that one goal: that there be no child unwanted, unloved, neglected, or killed and cast aside. And let us give until it hurts, with a smile.
“If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as He loves us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world. From here, a sign of care for the weakest of the weak —the unborn child. If you become a shining light of justice and peace in the world, then you will truly be faithful to what the founders of this country sought. God bless you!”.
9 MYTH. It is preferable to abort when the fetus presents genetic or congenital alterations, for what quality of life could such children come to have? No one wants a child with malformations or AIDS.
REALITY. Many of the unborn die; others will not be able to reach adult life because their nature is not prepared to attain it. Why put an end to them intentionally?
Thanks to the advances of technology applied in medicine, progress has been achieved that in former times was unimaginable, and among these is the possibility of obtaining sufficient data to forecast some pathology of the being in gestation. But who will say which illness is decisive for opting for abortion?
The Kennedy Foundation presented a film to show how terrible it was to reject children because they were sick. This film was based on a true story that took place at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The story is as follows: Shortly after the birth of a child affected by mongolism, it was discovered that he also had a narrowing in the digestive tract that prevented him from feeding. This anomaly condemned the child to death, unless a relatively simple surgical operation were performed. The parents rejected the intervention. The surgeon then turned to the judge, proposing the following: if I officially ask you to authorize me to disregard the parents’ refusal, would you support me? The judge’s opinion was that the parents have the right to oppose the intervention. After this reply, the head of Pediatrics decided not to operate on the child, who was placed in a separate room with the notice ‘Nothing by mouth’ and took fifteen days to die of hunger in one of the largest hospitals of the richest country in the world [19].
Very different are the following cases:
A photographer reported a surgical intervention for spina bifida performed on a fetus of 21 weeks’ gestation and captured how the baby put his tiny hand out from inside his mother’s uterus and tried to grasp one of the fingers of the doctor who had operated on him. The little hand belongs to Samuel Alexander Armas. The specialists operated on him inside the womb to correct his anomaly. His parents, Julie and Alex Armas, struggled for a long time to have a baby. Julie, a 27-year-old nurse, suffered two miscarriages before becoming pregnant with little Samuel. However, when she reached 14 weeks of gestation she began to suffer strong cramps, and an ultrasound test showed the reasons. Samuel’s brain looked deformed and the spinal cord was detaching from a vertebral column that also showed anomalies; the baby suffered from spina bifida, and they could decide between an abortion or a child with serious disabilities. According to Alex, abortion was never an option. Before letting themselves be discouraged, the couple decided to seek a solution by their own means, and thus they both began to request help through the internet. In this way, they established contact with Doctor Joseph Bruner (whose finger is the one Samuel is holding in the photograph). Spina bifida can lead to brain damage, generate various paralyses, and even total incapacity. However, when it is corrected before the baby is born, there are many more chances of a cure. Although the risk was great, the operation was a success. During it, the doctors were able to treat the baby without taking him out of the uterus, to close the breach caused by the deformation and protect the vertebral column, which serves as a path for the nerve signals to the brain [20].
After the birth, Samuel’s parents addressed a letter to all the friends around the world who had joined in prayer for the baby and adopted his moving story as a banner of the pro-life struggle. The text of the missive reads: Dear friends and family: Samuel was born on Thursday, December 2 at 6:25 pm at Northside Hospital, weighing 5 pounds 11 ounces and measuring 20 and a half inches. He was born at 36 weeks of gestation but came into the world sticking out his head with a cry. Samuel did not have to pass through any neonatal unit and came home together with us on Monday, December 6. After seeing an ultrasound of his brain, his neurosurgeon was very optimistic because he showed no trace of hydrocephalus and the cerebral malformation had been resolved. He is moving his legs very well from the hips and with a little less ease from his knees. He was bent in half in the uterus, and the orthopedist believes he has a very good chance of walking. He will begin his physical therapy next week in order to overcome the stiffness of his legs that resulted from his position in the womb. Samuel is feeding very well. Thank you for all your prayers and your support. We are happier than we ever dreamed it was possible to be! With all our love, Julie, Alex, and Samuel Armas [21].
Another case shows a premature baby girl who was on the point of dying when the doctors decided to disconnect the devices that kept her alive because they thought she presented a grave genetic anomaly. The parents never accepted the doctors’ diagnosis. According to the specialists, their daughter suffered from a chromosomal disorder called triploid syndrome that would not allow her to survive. The specialists were prepared to disconnect the devices that ensured the baby’s nourishment and care while she completed her growth, because supposedly the girl’s days were numbered and it was not “worth the trouble” to keep her alive. The parents decided to have new tests performed on her before subjecting her to what they considered euthanasia. The new analyses confirmed their fears: the doctors were going to kill a healthy girl. The case has caused controversy over the indifferent attitude of the majority of English doctors toward the unborn and toward babies [22].
It is very sad to learn of parents who reject their children for suffering from some disability, as well as of doctors who are willing to “improve the race”; nevertheless, it is also gladdening to know that there always exist persons who welcome such a baby as a greatly loved child. For example, if one takes the frequent example of children with Down syndrome and asks the parents, most of them will say that they are very happy children—indeed, that they call themselves happy with their child.
Children and adults with disability problems are happy, they keep hope, and they prefer living to never having been born. There are many cases that confirm this.
So, for example, Jesús Francisco Marroquín Gómez is a good fifth-grade primary-school student, plays soccer and basketball, has many friends, wants to be a doctor, and has a physical disability. He was born with multiple malformations that prevented the development of some vertebrae and of his legs, so that his feet, of very small size, are joined to tiny fixed extremities in the shape of a cross, and he considers himself a happy person [23].
And so, among us all, we could mention thousands of similar cases. For all this, one would have to reconsider what is really important, because determinations are being made that affect the human person and not the raising of cattle.
If it were legitimate to kill a human being because he runs the risk of having a life “without value,” then one would have to kill all who fall into that same model, because where does one place a person’s quality of life? It is really something very subjective. Where one person is happy, another thinks of suicide.
In a debate on French television, Lejeune asked Monod: from a syphilitic father and a tubercular mother who had four children; the first was born blind, the second died at birth, the third was born deaf-mute, and the fourth is tubercular; the mother becomes pregnant with a fifth child. What would you do? “I would interrupt that pregnancy,” Monod answered with complete assurance; to which his opponent replied: Let us have a minute of silence, for you would have killed Beethoven [24].
It is therefore necessary to wait for each one to choose his own destiny, and not to run ahead by making a decision that admits no rectification. What a fine law that would be which permits the killing of the most helpless and weak, and, in this case, the sick!
Therefore, to be in favor of eugenic abortion leads to the aberration of supposing that to put a human being to death is to do him a favor; as that saying goes: “better you don’t help me, friend.”
10 MYTH. Only women with economic means who decide to abort have illegal abortions in the best conditions, while the rest die or are left affected because of a badly performed clandestine abortion.
REALITY. The argument of those who are in favor of abortion to avoid clandestinity is: if the mother risks her life to kill her child, let us give her permission so that she can destroy it without risking herself.
To authorize abortion because it is going to be performed clandestinely anyway is something as absurd as reasoning that if a bandit risks his life to steal, it would be better to leave the door open and the light on so that he does not trip [25].
Something that is not usually said is that abortion is always dangerous in itself, whether performed clandestinely or by expert hands and under the best conditions of hygiene. There are no “good abortions.” Some consequences are: hemorrhage, uterine perforation, genital infection, permanent sterility, ectopic pregnancy, permanent opening of the cervix, perforation of the intestine. In addition there are the psychological disturbances, more grave and profound than the foregoing.
Testimonies —such as this one— indicate that abortion marks a person forever: “I don’t know why I did it, but what I am sure of is that I still have not recovered from that experience. The nightmares do not let me live in peace” [26].
Supporters of abortion cite alarming figures of women who have died because of clandestine abortions. One would have to ask them how many women die annually, because it would be madness to adopt the legal measure of killing innocents on the basis of an imprecise or unknown datum.
Various international family-planning organizations, such as the Alan Guttmacher Institute —an entity financed in large part by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)— have disseminated data on women who have died because of clandestine abortions in Latin America. According to their figures, these deaths numbered 300,000 each year in Mexico. However, the statistical yearbook of the World Health Organization (WHO) has refuted those figures. So, for example, in 1989 there died in our country 172,423 women, of whom 21,177 were of childbearing age, and of those deaths, the WHO records only 149 in Mexico due to abortion, including spontaneous ones [27].
The data of INEGI [28] indicate that in 1994 a total of 181,136 female deaths were registered. The 5 principal causes were: heart diseases 16.7%, malignant tumors 13.4%, diabetes mellitus 9.4%, cerebrovascular disease 6.7%, pneumonia and influenza 4.9%, without specifying age.
As for maternal mortality, for every 10,000 live births 4.9 women died in 1994. The main causes are: toxemia of pregnancy 27.4%, hemorrhage of pregnancy 24.1%, complication of the puerperium 10.4%, abortion 6.7%. Children born alive in 1994: 2,903,825. Therefore, by reason of maternity 1,421 women died that year, and of them 212 were attributed to abortion. Where did the figures for the other deceased women go? Who upholds those quantities? Where were they obtained from?
Now then, it is nothing new to manipulate the figures in order to succeed in imposing abortion; thus did Bernard Nathanson, the so-called “King of abortion” for all the United States in 1973, succeed in doing. As he himself declared once his opinion had changed. In 1968 he organized the “National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws,” and he asserted that from 10 to 15 thousand women died each year because of clandestine abortions, when in fact he knew that the cases were between 200 and 300 [29].
In any case, whatever the real figure of women who have died from clandestine abortions, the only thing it would mean is that both society and the government have not known how to offer alternatives for the women who have conceived an unwanted child.
The function of the law is to create a State of Law; if, on the contrary, it consisted in enshrining situations of fact, it is clear that it could not be so only in the case of abortion. In the face of the spread of theft, violence, fraud, tortures, kidnappings, sexual harassment, corruption of minors (through induced begging, drugs, sexual aggression), exploitation (of the deaf-mute, the demented, the crippled), the mistreatment of children and women, bribery, terrorism, drug trafficking, etc., the legislator would have no other course than to declare legal what is illegitimate. Why, in these cases, is it not proposed that the laws be changed to decriminalize the offenses? [30].
Some assert that as long as abortion is not permitted there will be more clandestine abortions. Of those persons one would have to ask whether they seriously think that: will fewer people take drugs when the drug is permitted? Will there be fewer robberies when stealing is legal? Should the offenses that the people recurrently commit then be legalized? In that case, in the United States they should start thinking about legalizing the shooting down of their classmates by children in elementary schools [31].
Undoubtedly, in every legislation there exist precepts that ought to be changed. When people appeal to customs to demand the abrogation of a law, it is because they suppose that it is a circumstantial norm, and in many cases it will be so. However, there also exist inderogable precepts, which make it possible to enjoy legal and social security: life belongs to those norms.
On the other hand, it is a fact that in those countries where abortion is legal, the illegal practice continues. Why? So as not to appear as a single mother; to cover up an affair; out of hatred for the father; because the requirements for a legal abortion are not met; or simply because a clandestine clinic turns out to be cheaper.
In the U.S.A. a girl was born crippled at 34 weeks of gestation as a consequence of an illegal and unconsummated abortion. The mother wanted to abort and went to a doctor who runs an illegal abortion clinic in New York, with the result of amputating an arm of the girl, who survived the operation. When the girl’s photo appeared in the newspapers, public indignation against the author of the failed abortion was not slow in coming. However, what this doctor did is what is daily practiced in a multitude of consummated legal abortions, only that in these the fetus is torn to pieces. So, when the work consists in killing, the most incompetent does the least harm [32].
In Mexico there is the experience that abortions are avoidable if one manages to explain to women that abortion is the homicide of their child.
“And so —comments Pope John Paul II— the unborn child is weak, defenceless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby’s cries and tears. He or she is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb” [33].
11 MYTH. Abortion is a good measure of birth control; why bring more people into the world?
REALITY. Overpopulation is not a problem in Mexico; on the contrary, what is a problem is the birth of children who are born outside of marriage (around 50%) without forming a family, as the censuses have shown us.
To ensure generational replacement in the world, 2.1 births per couple are needed. At present there exist countries whose growth rate is lower, so that their population is beginning to disappear after years of controlling the birth rate. For, as the maxim says: God forgives always, men sometimes, but nature, never.
Something must account for the fact that in Europe and in Canada large families are being supported economically.
12 MYTH. Abortion must be an option when one lacks the capacity for the economic support of the unborn child.
REALITY. If it is legally authorized to make an attempt on the life of the most defenseless and innocent of individuals, then what is the sense of the law? In no way can it be an acceptable solution to do away with human beings. Nor can it be considered a crime to be poor. There are some who wish to apply to the population that saying: “kill the dog and you end the rabies.”
In a clear recognition of the value of life from conception, the Supreme Court of Justice of Buenos Aires decided to grant a subsidy to a baby yet to be born after verifying that the mother, despite wanting to raise her child, did not have the economic means to support him. Technically, it is the unborn child who will receive a subsidy of 350 dollars in the person of the mother for one year beginning from the period of pregnancy. The decision to allocate this aid was made after learning of the mother’s situation, so as to prevent her from giving her child up for adoption, a possibility that had been contemplated despite her wanting to raise the baby. The case reached the Court and had an extremely summary proceeding. It is the first time that, in this way, the value of life before birth is recognized. In the resolution signed by the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, the judge explained that with this measure the right to the protection of life is recognized “from conception until natural death,” as the provincial Constitution promulgated in 1994 states [34].
In Mexico a similar solution could be grounded in the application of the last paragraph of Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which states: “the law shall determine the forms of support for the protection of minors, borne by the Public Institutions.”
The municipal administration of the city of Niscemi (Italy), a great agricultural center of Sicily, has decided to offer special aid to women who are expecting a child and find themselves in a situation of economic difficulty. The municipal budget provides economic aid of up to 6,000 dollars for women who renounce abortion and decide to carry their pregnancy through to the end. The initiative forms part of a broader project called “Childhood Desk.” The program has been endowed economically with 115,000 dollars. The councilman confesses that the idea came to him after a conversation with a professional nurse at the local hospital who revealed to him that the majority of the women who turned to the public health service to abort did so pushed by their difficult socioeconomic situation. This program, which it has been possible to set in motion by diverting funds from the mayor’s office, also provides for the creation of charitable works directed by religious entities and non-profit associations for the assistance of needy children; the reinforcement of the structures of service to childhood, such as day-care centers; the activation of meeting centers for children and adolescents; and the institution of services in support of school and extracurricular activities [35].
Also in the city of Milan (Italy), the city hall grants aid of one million lire a month (500 dollars) to pregnant women who, finding themselves in economic difficulties, wish to have their child instead of aborting, whether married or single, Italian or foreign. The objective is to protect the motherhood of persons with few resources and to prevent abortion for economic reasons [36].
What those poor women need is support, but that aid must not consist in killing the children. To permit abortion for economic reasons signifies no progress or social advancement, but quite the contrary: the civilization that promotes abortion for economic reasons is totally lacking in solidarity and reveals a great human poverty and misery.
So it was shown by the legislation in Yucatán, where abortion is considered legal because of the parents’ economic situation. When it is clear, to any authentic Mexican, that the solution should go in the opposite direction, for the culture of this country has traditionally known how to give welcome to the most needy; therefore the legislation should provide for a system more in keeping with our customs, in which the social body is valued at every level, and at the same time the rich and manifold human relationships are kept alive that guarantee the existence of a network capable of sustaining the weakest members.
Why do some suppose that in order to help one must abort? Simply because they are not persons fit to govern.
13 MYTH. In the most developed countries abortion on demand is practiced. To prohibit it serves only to condemn women without resources to a grave risk to their lives. Whom does it serve for abortions to be considered a crime?
REALITY. With this last question it becomes evident that the one being eliminated is not being taken into account. It is true that at present there are many countries that have authorized the practice of abortion on demand, but it is also true that those legislative changes constitute a regression in permitting the suppression of innocent lives.
In those places where abortion on demand is a “right” of the citizens, cases like the following also occur. Two women who were in similar circumstances. Both had three children when they encountered an unexpected pregnancy. Both realized that one more child would mean discomforts and problems, and would oblige them to give up the plans they had made regarding their work and their family life. One wanted to have the child; the other aborted. The accounts are as follows: the writer Elizabeth Klein was expecting her fourth child around her fortieth birthday. Her friends would ask her: And your book? You have three children. You have already done your part. Until she saw on the scanner screen the perfectly formed head of the child she was carrying inside, she desired to have the baby. Afterward she writes: since our little daughter was born we can no longer imagine life without her. The other account is the following: when Elinor Nelson learned that she was pregnant, she was greatly shocked. In her case, becoming pregnant by natural means was extraordinary, but through in vitro fertilization she had had triplets. After all, it was the most normal of the reproductive experiences she had had; nevertheless, on seeing the disorder that her two-year-old children made, she decided to abort. Klein writes: it is especially pleasing to us to have our daughter as a bonus now that her siblings have left home. Now we have with her those intimate after-dinner conversations that were rarely possible when our noisy trio sat down to eat (how would Elinor Nelson feel if she read this?) [37].
There is also known the edifying testimony of mothers who, in countries of the so-called first world, have preferred to have their baby at the risk of dying rather than opt for an abortion, as for example the Venerable Gianna Beretta Molla, and more recently Carla Pomella, who gave birth on April 22, 1995, she herself dying in June of that same year.
To suppose that women by themselves have the right to decide whether they continue pregnant or not would give ground to understanding that procreation is subject to their will, and therefore all the responsibility for upbringing and education. For rights are always bound up with responsibilities.
And so it has been determined by the legislation in countries where abortion is unrestricted. It is being used as an excuse for men who evade their responsibility, alleging that the child they have contributed to engendering ought to have been aborted, and that the woman who did not want to abort cannot impose on them any responsibility for the “lifestyle she has chosen.” Nevertheless, all are being harmed, for some learn too late, and with grief, that the child they would have welcomed has died [38].
Moreover, in the U.S.A. there also exist reactions favorable to life. Proof of this are the so-called rescue operations that peacefully hinder entry into the abortion clinics, with the object of rescuing from a certain death at least some of the unborn. This has been carried out, despite the fact that the American Congress passed a law establishing penalties for those responsible for demonstrations in front of abortion clinics. The punishments can reach up to one year of imprisonment and a 100,000-dollar fine the first time, or up to three years and 250,000 dollars for repeat offenders, if violence is involved.
To decriminalize would not turn what was a crime into a right, but reality shows that this is how it ends up happening, owing to the promotional function of legal norms. Even if it were sought to apply it only to exceptional cases, such conduct would end up becoming “normal” and exempt from social reproach, which would facilitate its multiplication.
It is hardly reasonable to suppose that because the first-world countries do it, that conduct ought to be imitated; it is like saying that if in the United States AIDS occupies one of the principal causes of death among persons from 24 to 44 years of age, it ought to be so in Mexico as well, and likewise as regards drug addicts and homicides in schools [39].
14 MYTH. Abortion is a public health problem.
ANSWER. No doubt those who maintain this will have their reasons, but it is necessary to point out that, before being a question of public health, it is, above all, a matter of justice, and therefore of Law, which seeks to conduct itself with the utmost justice.
It is evident that an idea of just Law cannot be reconciled with a system that does not recognize personhood in all human beings equally, at any stage of their biological evolution [40].
To frame abortion primarily as a public health problem is as naive as to assert that the robbery of a bank is a fiscal matter (it does not seem likely that this opinion is shared by the one who was held at gunpoint), or that the violence of drug trafficking should be assessed by the Ecology department (because of the lead in the lungs, the noise of the bursts of gunfire, and the contamination from gunpowder).
Answers to myths of Catholics who hold positions contrary to the doctrine of the Church
The great majority of daily actions are carried out thanks to trust. We trust in the sign of the route that the bus we board will follow, in the solidity of the house that with so much effort has been acquired; we rely on the gasoline we put in the car’s tank, on the food we eat daily, on the water we drink, on the medicine we acquire, our very life on the doctor who has had his grave errors in his professional life, and a very long etc., including the fact that so-and-so is our father. We trust and we act, because, not wishing to proceed with faith, if we were consistent, we would remain motionless until we verified that the water I am going to drink is not contaminated with cholera, that the lady who gives me directions and who says she is my mother really is, that the elements of the periodic table do exist and are not simply an exercise for the memory.
It is obvious that placing one’s faith has its risks, and logically at times one ends up deceived: foods with parasites are sold, adulterated gasoline, kilograms of lesser weight, etc. But these frauds are not the fruit of trust, but of other kinds of conduct: lack of hygiene, avarice, hypocrisy. It is true that trust was the best breeding ground for going further in those ill-advised behaviors, but it was not their cause.
Even though trust is certainly a risk, and a risk that is assumed more frequently than we are often aware of, nevertheless, thanks to it, the world continues on its course, for only with trust can one go forward.
Without that faith, we could not even go out into the street, for it turns out to be both physically and intellectually impossible to verify everything, since we lack the abilities, the knowledge, and the time.
Any limitation of time, of ability, or of knowledge is enough to impede the verification of the benefit that can be obtained from almost the whole of the actions that day by day, and moment by moment, we perform.
We trust that the film chosen will fulfill our expectation, that the party to which we were invited will take place, that tomorrow we will be alive. We even believe certain newspaper editorialists! We trust in something or someone, despite the fact that there is no scientific method leading to verification. If, instead of conducting ourselves on the basis of faith, we waited to have certainty of everything, we simply and plainly could not advance.
The Encyclical says it better: Human beings are not made to live alone. They are born into a family and in a family they grow, eventually entering society through their activity. From birth, therefore, they are immersed in traditions which give them not only a language and a cultural formation but also a range of truths in which they believe almost instinctively. Yet personal growth and maturity imply that these same truths can be cast into doubt and evaluated through a process of critical enquiry. It may be that, after this time of transition, these truths are “recovered” as a result of the experience of life or by dint of further reasoning. Nonetheless, there are in the life of a human being many more truths which are simply believed than truths which are acquired by way of personal verification. Who, for instance, could assess critically the countless scientific findings upon which modern life is based? Who could personally examine the flow of information which comes day after day from all parts of the world and which is generally accepted as true? Who in the end could forge anew the paths of experience and thought which have yielded the treasures of human wisdom and religion? This means that the human being—the one who seeks the truth—is also the one who lives by belief. In believing, we entrust ourselves to the knowledge acquired by other people. This suggests an important tension. On the one hand, the knowledge acquired through belief can seem an imperfect form of knowledge, to be perfected gradually through personal accumulation of evidence; on the other hand, belief is often humanly richer than mere evidence, because it involves an interpersonal relationship and brings into play not only a person’s capacity to know but also the deeper capacity to entrust oneself to others, to enter into a relationship with them which is intimate and enduring. At the same time, however, knowledge through belief, grounded as it is on trust between persons, is linked to truth: in the act of believing, men and women entrust themselves to the truth which the other declares to them. Such a truth—vital and necessary as it is for life—is attained not only by way of reason but also through trusting acquiescence to other persons who can guarantee the authenticity and certainty of the truth itself. There is no doubt that the capacity to entrust oneself and one’s life to another person and the decision to do so are among the most significant and expressive human acts [41].
Such being the case, when a Christian places his faith in the Church, he does so knowing in whom he trusts:
a) Infallible in matters of faith and morals (Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus);
b) Teacher in humanity;
c) Strong in declaring the truth;
d) and Mother (Encyclical Mater et Magistra 5-15-61), with an affection for her children and toward the most needy that she has demonstrated by her self-giving throughout the two thousand years of her existence.
Then, why so much resistance on the part of some to trusting Her?
Within the sphere of what must be believed, Pope John Paul II comments in another document: The human sin of the beginnings is recounted in the book of Genesis 3. It is not difficult to discover in this text the essential problems of man hidden in a content apparently so simple. The eating or not eating of the fruit of a certain tree may seem in itself irrelevant. Nevertheless, the tree “of the knowledge of good and evil” signifies the impassable limit for man and for any creature. The creature is always, in effect, only a creature, and not God. It cannot in any way claim to be “like God,” “knowing good and evil” like God. Only God is the source of all being; only God is the absolute Truth and Goodness, in whom good and evil are measured and from whom they are distinguished. Only God is the eternal Legislator, from whom any law in the created world derives, and in particular the law of human nature (natural Law). Man, as a rational creature, knows this law and must let himself be guided by it in his own conduct. He cannot claim to establish the moral law himself, to decide for himself what is good and what is evil, independently of the Creator, indeed, against the Creator. Neither man nor any other creature can put himself in the place of God, attributing to himself the dominion of the moral order, against the very ontological constitution of creation, which is reflected in the psychological-ethical sphere in the fundamental imperatives of the conscience and, consequently, of human conduct [42].
Even so, some do not wish to believe the Church, to place their trust in her, thereby achieving —they say— their autonomy, their inner coming of age, or other similar longings. In the face of that situation one may paraphrase Chesterton with the following:
What happens with the cultural environment that surrounds us is that it abounds, not in thought, but in verbiage. Many know that such a phrase must be used for a certain topic; but they never even imagine how they might apply it to another subject. To ask on what it depends; to consider where it leads; to meditate whether there are other cases to which it applies; all this seems to be an unknown world to many who use words rather lightly. The fact is that these persons only use those words in relation to one particular matter. They understand one another by formulas. For example, a young mother who says: “I do not want to teach my child any religion. I do not want to influence him; I want him to choose it for himself when he is grown.” That is a very common example of a current argument, which is frequently repeated, and which, nevertheless, is never truly applied. Of course the mother will always be influencing her child. In the same way the mother could have said: “I hope he will choose his own friends when he grows up; that is why I do not want to introduce him to any aunts or uncles.” The adult person can in no case escape the responsibility of influencing the child; not even when he imposes on himself the responsibility of not doing so. The mother can educate her child without choosing a religion for him; but not without choosing an environment for him. If she opts to set religion aside, she is already choosing the environment. The mother, so that her child does not suffer the influence of social traditions, will have to isolate her child on a desert island and there educate him. But the mother is choosing the island, the lake, and the solitude; and she is as responsible for acting thus as if she had chosen sect “X” or theology “Y.” It is completely evident, to whoever thinks things over for two minutes, that the responsibility for directing childhood belongs to the adult, but the people who repeat that phraseology do not think about it for two minutes. They do not attempt to join their words to a reason, to a philosophy. They have heard that argument applied to religion, and they never think to apply it to anything other than religion. They have heard that there are persons who refuse to educate their children even in their own religion. There could equally be persons who would refuse to educate their children in their own civilization. If the child, when he is grown, may prefer another creed, it is equally true that he may prefer another culture. He may be annoyed at not having been educated as a bourgeois; he may deeply regret not having been educated as an English gentleman. In the same way he may regret having been educated as a savage of the desert. He may feel envious of the dignity of the code of Confucius or weep over the ruins of the great Inca civilization, but, evidently, someone has had to educate him to reach that state of regretting this or that; and a great responsibility is that of not guiding the child toward some end. The point is that these persons ask a question for whose answer they themselves are not prepared, not even in the case of the topics they themselves suggest, because they do not make the least effort to treat the matter considered as a whole. They only repeat the insipid comment that is made regarding that controversy. It is just as if we thought that by intoning the same musical note one hundred and fifty times we would come to sing like an opera tenor. Not all of us can sing like that or think like a philosopher, but we would come much closer to them if we could forget all that string of phrases from certain newspapers and from those who call themselves “intellectuals,” and begin anew, thinking for ourselves [43].
A similar reasoning —referring to abortion— is made by a member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language: “The thorny question of voluntary abortion can be posed in very diverse ways. Among those who consider the inconvenience or illicitness of abortion, the most frequent approach is the religious one. But it is usually answered that a particular morality cannot be imposed on an entire society. There is another approach that claims to have universal validity, and that is the scientific one. The biological reasons, concretely genetic ones, are considered demonstrable, conclusive for anyone. But their proofs are not accessible to the immense majority of men and women, who admit them by faith; that is to say, by faith in science” [44].
Finally, it seems necessary to remind “the believers” that in the Creed —both in the Apostles’ and in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan— we say: I believe in the Church.
15 MYTH. There exist different ways of thinking. Some theologians have resolved the question of abortion in a manner different from the Church.
REALITY. It is a known reality that there exist theologians in disagreement with the traditional teaching of the Church; nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that this is not an institution that can be described as democratic, just as, curiously, neither is the greatest world organization, the UN. Personally, I would not dare to defend that it should continue to be so, but, on the other hand, I am fully convinced that what has been established by God cannot be democratic. And not only that; the Church is also dogmatic, but likewise we find examples of dogmas in ordinary life—let us think, for example, of the opera or of the selection of the best red wine. And, indeed, with the enormous advantage, in the case of the Church, of the absolute certainty that she will not vary her way of thinking.
But, before this, we may ask: will they even have read the documents of the Magisterium that treat these themes? There exist documents addressed to the Catholic faithful —that is, to the baptized who believe in Christ and are members of the Church. It is not possible to penetrate into the sense they have if one does not perceive that a Catholic is not only a subject of rights, but also of obligations. The care of life is one of them.
And as regards “the way of thinking,” the Church proposes no philosophy of her own nor canonizes any particular philosophy to the detriment of others; nevertheless she has the duty to indicate what in a philosophical system may be incompatible with her faith [45].
Moreover, the light of reason and the light of faith both proceed from God; therefore, they cannot contradict one another [46].
Along that same line, some, abandoning the search for truth for its own sake, have adopted as their sole objective the attainment of subjective certainty or practical usefulness. From this there follows as a consequence the obscuring of the authentic dignity of reason, which is no longer capable of knowing the true and of seeking the absolute [47].
Therefore, it is possible that some theologians have resolved the question of abortion in a manner different from the Church. Those persons may be sincere, but they are sincerely mistaken.
16 MYTH. Let the Church not meddle; let her not try to impose religious criteria on others.
REALITY. The curious thing is that those who say this agree to imposing their own criterion on others. And, with respect to the Church, why should she not do so? If those persons wish to do it, what prevents them from exercising their right as citizens? Since when does belonging to a religious group disqualify someone as a citizen? They too have rights.
To be tolerated in the expression of one’s ideas is the minimum that one can expect; why do some seek to exclude others from this right?
Moreover, in this country, we who hold the opinion in favor of the respect for human life from the moment of conception are the greater number, without making any distinction as to the religion that each one professes.
17 MYTH. The Pope is infallible only when he proclaims ex cathedra a doctrine in matters of faith or morals, and with respect to abortion he has never pronounced in this way. Besides, there exists no teaching of the Church about the moment at which the fetus receives the soul and becomes a person.
REALITY. To accept that with fertilization a new human being has begun to exist is not a matter of taste or opinion; it is a scientific reality.
On the other hand, the Pope declared: “From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already (…) Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins (…) The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception” [48].
“Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents or from his manner of speaking (…) his definitions, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly styled irreformable, since they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, promised to him in blessed Peter, and therefore they need no approval of others, nor do they allow an appeal to any other judgment. For then the Roman Pontiff is not pronouncing judgment as a private person, but as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the charism of infallibility of the Church itself is individually present, he is expounding or defending a doctrine of Catholic faith. The infallibility promised to the Church resides also in the body of Bishops, when that body exercises the supreme magisterium with the successor of Peter” [49].
The expression ex cathedra indicates the solemnity of this type of magisterium (the place of honor). For a papal doctrine to be an ex cathedra definition, four conditions are required (First Vatican Council): when, fulfilling his office as pastor and doctor of Christians, he defines by his supreme apostolic authority that a doctrine concerning faith and morals must be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance that was promised to him in the person of blessed Peter [50].
This being so, we have the following declaration of the Roman Pontiff: “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 (…) 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” [51].
A dogma is a truth always present in the Church and manifested at a determined instant of history. Now then, the assent due to the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff is not limited to the truths solemnly defined ex cathedra, but extends to all the acts of his ordinary magisterium.
Many documents confirm the position of the Catholic Church in favor of the human being from conception until natural death: the Encyclical Letter Casti connubii of Pope Pius XI (December 31, 1930); the Encyclicals Mater et Magistra (May 15, 1961) and Pacem in terris (April 11, 1963), both of Pope John XXIII; the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae of Pope Paul VI (July 25, 1968); the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes of the Second Vatican Council (December 7, 1965); the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio of Pope John Paul II (November 22, 1981); the Instruction known as Donum vitae (February 22, 1987); the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March 25, 1995); the Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women (June 29, 1995).
The Catechism states: “Endowed with ‘a spiritual and immortal’ soul, the human person is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake.’ From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude” [52].
On the other hand, it will also have to be said that the Pope has not declared ex cathedra dogmas on ecological protection, on respect for the differing opinion, on the condemnation of public lying, simply because he has not seen it necessary, and that much less will a dogma in favor of abortion ever come to be issued.
18 MYTH. The theologians, as part of the Magisterium of the Church, are returning to theological concepts formulated by Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, according to which God endows prenatal life with a soul only when it has a recognizably human body. If they had had access to present-day knowledge, they would have broadened their doctrine and taught that God endows the fetus with a soul when the brain is already developed.
REALITY. The Magisterium of the Church is represented by the Pope, or by a Council approved by the Roman Pontiff, and by the Bishops in communion with him; the theologians do not, of themselves, form part of that Magisterium.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was unaware (13th century) of genetics and the existence of chromosomes, adopted with respect to the fetus the opinion of delayed or also called mediate animation, according to which the unborn was not considered a human person until days after fertilization. The grounding of this theory is of philosophical origin: in those stages of development a human appearance is lacking, and the human soul cannot inform a body that is not human (Summa Theologica III, q.6 a.4). Nevertheless, he was opposed to making an attempt on that unborn being, since, although he did not consider it, in the first days of conception, as a human person, he did think of it as in its most proximate potency, and that it would unequivocally turn out to be a human being. If the unborn at the moment of the abortion was animated, its elimination would be a homicide; if it was not animated, we would —even so— be facing a grave sin.
And, if with the present-day knowledge of genetics it were necessary to redefine the philosophical position of the Thomistic teaching, we would have to affirm, together with him, that, the zygote composed of 46 chromosomes being a true human body, there would be a human soul there, from the very moment of conception.
Now then, independently of the theory of delayed animation, the position of the Church is clear in imposing a canonical penalty such as excommunication, in the Code of Canon Law, canon 1398: “Whoever procures an abortion, if it takes place, incurs an immediate excommunication.”
19 MYTH. The Catholic Church teaches that in the last instance the conscience must be the guiding principle for action and that we sin only when we act against our conscience. We have the obligation to form it well and to take into account all the aspects that can help us to make an appropriate decision regarding abortion; but the decision is yours.
REALITY. Although we all ought to follow our own conscience, its role is not to create the truth.
The moral conscience is the intelligence itself making a practical judgment on the goodness or malice of an act; for this reason it is not licit to act against one’s own conscience, even though the judgment may be erroneous, provided that it is a matter of an ignorance insurmountable for the person. Now then, normally it is a matter of surmountable errors, with the obligation to clarify the important matters. Therefore, there exists the obligation to form the conscience, since if the conscience errs through voluntary and culpable negligence, the person is responsible for that error [53]. In the case of abortion, it does not seem likely that an error should occur in the evaluation of its goodness or malice.
The Encyclical Veritatis Splendor explains: “Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person’s intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others” [54].
The Catholic Church has come forward declaring that the interpretation of the moral law belongs to her Magisterium [55], and on repeated occasions she has declared herself in favor of life from the moment of conception.
The right to life is dealt with extensively in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where it states in no. 73: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. From the very beginnings of the Church, the apostolic preaching reminded Christians of their duty to obey legitimately constituted public authorities (cf. Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-14), but at the same time it firmly warned that ‘we must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29). In the Old Testament, precisely in regard to threats against life, we find a significant example of resistance to the unjust command of those in authority. After Pharaoh ordered the killing of all newborn males, the Hebrew midwives refused. ‘They did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live’ (Ex 1:17). But the ultimate reason for their action should be noted: ‘the midwives feared God’ (ibid.). It is precisely from obedience to God—to whom alone is due that fear which is acknowledgment of his absolute sovereignty—that the strength and the courage to resist unjust human laws are born. It is the strength and the courage of those prepared even to be imprisoned or put to the sword, in the certainty that this is what makes for ‘the endurance and faith of the saints’ (Rev 13:10).
20 MYTH. There are Catholic theologians, priests, and bishops who consider some abortions moral. And, although Canon Law establishes that whoever commits an abortion is automatically excommunicated, this is false if she does it in accordance with her conscience.
REALITY. As Pope Pius XII affirms: if the Supreme Pontiffs in their Magisterium pronounce a sentence on arguments hitherto controverted, it is evident that, according to the intention and will of those same Pontiffs, those questions can no longer be considered as matters of free discussion among theologians [56].
“the Roman Church, by the Lord’s disposition, possesses the primacy of ordinary power over all others, and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate. To this power the pastors and faithful are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and of true obedience (…) not only in the matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in those that belong to the governance and discipline of the Church” [57].
The power of the Roman Pontiff extends over the Councils and the Patriarchs [58], over the bishops both individually and grouped in the Episcopal College, of which the Successor of Peter is the Head [59].
It is clear that many opinions do not make a Magisterium, even though they come from the voices of “very Catholic” persons. Moreover, in a matter as clear as abortion is, it does not seem possible to justify an error of the conscience, but, in any case, it is a matter of an autosuggestion that one is acting correctly.
Pope John Paul II pointed out the following in Mexico: “Let no Mexican dare to violate the sacred gift of life in the maternal womb!”
21 MYTH. In Italy, a mostly Catholic country, on whose territory the Vatican is located, abortion was decriminalized, motivated by the situation of injustice which meant that women with economic resources could have abortions performed in good conditions, while women of few resources had to resort to methods that often turned out to be lethal. This fact indicates that the Church ought to change her position regarding abortion.
REALITY. On the one hand, with the approval of abortion in Italy the lack of coherence was perceived of those who declare themselves Catholics. Now then, that situation did not break the ever-constant teaching of the Church in her doctrine.
On the other hand, many similar situations have arisen throughout history, and the Church has always managed to come through them. For example, the Bible shows that the situation was worse for all of humanity when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command not to taste the fruit of the forbidden tree. The heresy of Arius, embraced by the majority of the Catholic bishops of the 4th century, was overcome. One may also recall the situation for the Church in the East with the Muslim conquest (7th c.), the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, etc. It is therefore evident that one thing is what the Catholic Church maintains, and another, what each one decides to do with his freedom.
In a similar way to saying that it is Catholics who commit homicides, rape, steal, beat, and lie. In no case would they do so in fulfillment of Catholic doctrine, but by giving course to doctrines similar to the argument of the myth, that is: “if it is done, it is good.” Therefore, continuing along that line of thought, if now some individuals were to come and say “this assembly is very boring, let us liven it up,” and set about beating, raping, and setting fire to those of us gathered here, it would not be judged unsurpassable merely because the lovers of violence remarked that the boredom had been taken out of the meeting.
As has been answered previously, those who abort, with resources or without them, are putting to death another person, besides causing grave harm to themselves. So, those who advise it are not giving a good recommendation. The poor woman who aborted will regret having done it, perhaps at the worst moment of her life. Something indicates that there are more and more doctors in the United States who repent of having performed abortions.
That there are Catholics in favor of abortion! Yes, it is true. Now then, that those persons are in the right! Evidently the answer is no. It is undeniable that there are mothers who abort, as it is also that there exist persons who commit errors.
22 MYTH. We “Catholics for the Right to Decide” belong to the Catholic Church because we are baptized; nevertheless we hold opinions different from what the Pope teaches on certain matters, such as, for example, abortion.
REALITY. There are countless debatable matters in which each person, Catholic or not, may freely express their convictions; nevertheless, a few truths have been taught by the Church for her faithful. In this regard Lumen Gentium, no. 25, states: “the faithful (…) are to accept their bishop’s decision, made in the name of Christ, in matters of faith and morals, and to adhere to it with a religious assent” How do these persons who call themselves “Catholics for the Right to Decide” (CDD) explain their lack of adherence?
The Mexican bishops publicly disqualified the self-styled association “Catholics for the Right to Decide,” because it is licit for no one to attribute to himself the supposed “right to choose” when it is a matter of the life of a person. It is licit for no one, priest or lay faithful, to manipulate Sacred Scripture or the Magisterium to justify a personal opinion in this matter [60].
The Church denounced the self-styled group “Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD).” The ecclesiastical hierarchy specified that the CDD receive millions in dollar financing from powerful American foundations such as the Ford, Rockefeller Dayton, Packard, and MacArthur, among others. That, without counting the resources provided to them by the organizations of the UN itself, and, in the case of Mexico, the National Population Council (CONAPO). “No one who is in favor of the practice of abortion, of the union between homosexuals and the adoption of children by these couples; of the indiscriminate use of contraceptives among adolescents and mass sterilization as a method of demographic control, can legitimately call himself Catholic,” warned the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) [61].
Moreover the Roman Pontiff, as the stone that bears the weight of the Catholic Church, is the only one placed at the head. His doctrine is to be accepted even when he does not speak ex cathedra, and accepted in its entirety.
Therefore, a teacher in the Church is not whoever presents himself from among the people, however many titles he may claim to allege.
Nor is this myth surprising, for the same thing was done in the United States to legalize abortion in the seventies: they went against the Church by presenting Catholic women, bringing them to the fore as shields, so that they would say that they were in favor of abortion [62].
23 MYTH. I practice the Catholic religion and personally I will never agree with abortion; nevertheless, I am of the opinion that even though the life of the unborn is a good that must be protected, it is necessary that the legislation not impede the freedom to have or not have an abortion when a woman has been raped or her life is in danger.
ANSWER. Personally, each one may hold an opinion on a very varied range of questions; nevertheless, opinions must be supported, have a foundation, and, spontaneously, we all demand a certain congruence with them.
Direct abortion is one of those questions that involve the life of a person, that of the unborn. For this reason, in order to dispose of that life a good foundation is required. Some find it in the borderline cases of rape and danger to life; this will be treated in the following chapter; nevertheless, as for the aspect of being congruent with the Catholic religion, one would first have to know what the Church says about the defense of the unborn in legislation, so that one may at least learn whether one’s opinion is in conformity with the religion one practices.
Below are presented some points treated in various documents:
ENCYCLICAL “EVANGELIUM VITAE,” ROME 25-III-95
58. Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an “unspeakable crime”.
But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as “interruption of pregnancy”, which tends to hide abortion’s true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things.
71. It is therefore urgently necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only acknowledge, respect and promote.
Consequently there is a need to recover the basic elements of a vision of the relationship between civil law and moral law, which are put forward by the Church, but which are also part of the patrimony of the great juridical traditions of humanity.
Certainly the purpose of civil law is different and more limited in scope than that of the moral law. But “in no sphere of life can the civil law take the place of conscience or dictate norms concerning things which are outside its competence”, which is that of ensuring the common good of people through the recognition and defence of their fundamental rights, and the promotion of peace and of public morality. The real purpose of civil law is to guarantee an ordered social coexistence in true justice, so that all may “lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way” (1 Tim 2:2). Precisely for this reason, civil law must ensure that all members of society enjoy respect for certain fundamental rights which innately belong to the person, rights which every positive law must recognize and guarantee. First and fundamental among these is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being. While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which—were it prohibited—would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals—even if they are the majority of the members of society—an offence against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.
In the Encyclical Pacem in Terris, John XXIII pointed out that “it is generally accepted today that the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, co-ordinated, defended and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily. For ‘to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the performance of his duties, is the principal duty of every public authority’. Thus any government which refused to recognize human rights or acted in violation of them, would not only fail in its duty; its decrees would be wholly lacking in binding force”.
72. The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear once more from John XXIII’s Encyclical: “Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience (…); indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse”. This is the clear teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes that “human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence”. And again: “Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law”.
The first and most immediate application of this teaching concerns a human law which disregards the fundamental right and source of all other rights which is the right to life, a right belonging to every individual. Consequently, laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law (…)
Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law.
73. Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize (…)
In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to “take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it”.
A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations—particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation—there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.
Catechism of the CATHOLIC Church
2272. Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae” (CIC can. 1398), “by the very commission of the offense” (CIC can. 1314), and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law (CIC can. 1323-1324). The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
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 civil 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”.
“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”.
POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION “ECCLESIA IN AMERICA,” MEXICO 22-I-99
63. Nowadays, in America as elsewhere in the world, a model of society appears to be emerging in which the powerful predominate, setting aside and even eliminating the powerless: I am thinking here of unborn children, helpless victims of abortion; the elderly and incurably ill, subjected at times to euthanasia; and the many other people relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism. Nor can I fail to mention the unnecessary recourse to the death penalty when other “bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons (…) Today, given the means at the State’s disposal to deal with crime and control those who commit it, without abandoning all hope of their redemption, the cases where it is absolutely necessary to do away with an offender ‘are now very rare, even non-existent practically’”. This model of society bears the stamp of the culture of death, and is therefore in opposition to the Gospel message. Faced with this distressing reality, the Church community intends to commit itself all the more to the defense of the culture of life.
In this regard, the Synod Fathers, echoing recent documents of the Church’s Magisterium, forcefully restated their unconditional respect for and total dedication to human life from the moment of conception to that of natural death, and their condemnation of evils like abortion and euthanasia. If the teachings of the divine and natural law are to be upheld, it is essential to promote knowledge of the Church’s social doctrine and to work so that the values of life and family are recognized and defended in social customs and in State ordinances. As well as protecting life, greater efforts should be made, through a variety of pastoral initiatives, to promote adoptions and to provide continuing assistance to women with problem pregnancies, both before and after the birth of the child. Special pastoral attention must also be given to women who have undergone or actively procured an abortion.
How can we fail to thank God and express genuine appreciation to our brothers and sisters in the faith throughout America who are committed, along with other Christians and countless individuals of good will, to defending life by every legal means and to protecting the unborn, the incurably ill and the handicapped? Their work is all the more praiseworthy if we consider the indifference of so many people, the threats posed by eugenics and the assaults on life and human dignity perpetrated everywhere each day.
This same concern must be shown to the elderly, who are often neglected and left to fend for themselves. They must be respected as persons; it is important to care for them and to help them in ways which will promote their rights and ensure their greatest possible physical and spiritual well-being. The elderly must be protected from situations or pressures which could drive them to suicide; in particular they must be helped nowadays to resist the temptation of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Together with the Pastors of the People of God in America, I appeal to “Catholics working in the field of medicine and health care, to those holding public office or engaged in teaching, to make every effort to defend those lives most at risk, and to act with a conscience correctly formed in accordance with Catholic doctrine. Here Bishops and priests have a special responsibility to bear tireless witness to the Gospel of life and to exhort the faithful to act accordingly”. At the same time, it is essential for the Church in America to take appropriate measures to influence the deliberations of legislative assemblies, encouraging citizens, both Catholics and other people of good will, to establish organizations to propose workable legislation and to resist measures which endanger the two inseparable realities of life and the family. Nowadays there is a special need to pay attention to questions related to prenatal diagnosis, in order to avoid any violation of human dignity.
Author: Oscar Fernández Espinosa de los Monteros. Attorney and researcher in matters of Bioethics
Source: Encuentra.com
First version: 12-V-99
Previous version: 29-III-00
Latest version: 20-VII-00
MEXICO
e-mail: oscarf@altavista.net
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[1] MARÍAS, Julián, “La cuestión del aborto,” in the newspaper EL NORTE, Monterrey, Mexico, 25-XI-99
[2] Cf. “Aborto y angustia” in ACEPRENSA, 139/92, Madrid, Spain, 28-X-92
* If you wish to know more about this subject, contact the author of the book directly at the following internet address: oscarf@altavista.net
[3] Cf. HERNÁNDEZ GÁLVEZ, Dr. Edgar, “Síndrome post-aborto,” in http://www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/aborto/galvez.htm1
[4] Cf. “Aborto es cuatro veces más peligroso que parto, demuestra estudio,” in ACI Digital, http://www.aciprensa.com, 20-VI-00
[5] Cf. CENTRO DE AYUDA A LA MUJER, Report of Mexico in the Beijing+5 follow-up, chapter Women and Health, p. 1, and National Statistics, Mexico, 1989-1999,
[6] Cf. ” Contento de estar aquí” in ACEPRENSA, 99/93, Madrid, Spain, 2-VII-93
[7] Cf. “La certeza de una nueva vida” in Servicio Especial de Informaciones nº 235, Mexico, 15-III-83
[8] SALDAÑA ARÉVALO, Dr. Emilio, directly to the author.
[9] Cf. BURKE, Cormac, Felicidad y entrega en el matrimonio, Ediciones Rialp S.A., Madrid, Spain, 1990, pp. 198-199
[10] Cf. “El aborto visto de cerca” in ACEPRENSA, 172/95, Madrid, Spain, 27-XII-95
[11] Cf. “EE.UU.: 25 años de la legalización del aborto” in ACEPRENSA, 16/98, Madrid, Spain, 28-I-98
[12] Cf. NATHANSON, Bernard, La Mano de Dios, Ediciones Palabra, 4th Edition, Madrid, Spain, 1999, p. 135
[13] Cf. SHEIBER, Marta, “Yo me hice rica con el aborto”, in the magazine PALABRA nº 309, Spain, January 1991, p. 46
[14] International Herald Tribune, 18-IX-91.
[15] Unfortunately it is not possible for me to know the source of these paragraphs. If anyone identifies them, I would be most grateful if he would let me know, so as to give due recognition to the author of this text. Oscar Fernández E.
[16] Cf. OLLERO, Andrés (University of Granada, Spain), “Eutanasia y Multiculturalismo, Derecho, moral y religión en una sociedad pluralista,” n. 3
[17] “El Cardenal y el Gobernador”, in ACEPRENSA, 119/90, Madrid, Spain, 1-VIII-90
[18] Cf. “El Gulag demográfico chino elevado a modelo por la ONU,” in EUROPE TODAY, nº 131, Brussels, Belgium, 27-IX-94, p. 3
[19] Cf. LEJEUNE, Jerome, ” Los médicos desnaturalizados”, in Dejadlos vivir, Ediciones Rialp S.A., Madrid, Spain, 1980, pp. 32 and 33
[20] Cf. “Fotografía de feto y médico se convierte en nuevo estandarte pro-vida,” ACI Digital, http://www.aciprensa.com, 18-VIII-99
[21] Cf. “Padres de Samuel dirigen carta a pro-vidas del mundo,” ACI Digital, http://www.aciprensa.com, 11-XII-99
[22] Cf. “Médicos casi matan a bebé prematura por falsa anomalía,” in ACI Digital, http://www.aciprensa.com, 1-IV-00
[23] Cf. MEDELLÍN, María Luisa, “Es un niño sin límites,” in the newspaper EL NORTE, Monterrey, Mexico, 8-IV-99
[24] Cf. LLANO CIFUENTES, Carlos, “Trece argumentos en favor de la vida” in the magazine ISTMO nº 162, Mexico, January-February 1986, p. 15
[25] SAVE, Alvar, directly to the author, Hermosillo, Mexico, 13-VI-00
[26] Cf. REYES, Rosalía, “Aborto la marca para siempre…”, in the newspaper EL NORTE, Monterrey, Mexico, 2-VI-99
[27] Cf. “campaña abortista con datos falsos” in ACEPRENSA, 123/91, Madrid, Spain, 1991.
[28] Cf. INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, GEOGRAFÍA E INFORMÁTICA, Mujeres y Hombres en México, Mexico City, 1997
[29] ” La conversión científica del Rey del aborto,” in ACEPRENSA, 71/82, Madrid, Spain, 12-V-82
[30] Cf. ÁLVAREZ SALAS, Dr. José, “La realidad del aborto”, paper presented at the Regional Health Forum, Pacific Zone, Culiacán, Mexico, October 8 and 9, 1993, p. 13
[31] Cf. MAYRA DE YAMALLEL, “Sugiere educación y apoyo para el niño” in Letters to the newspaper EL NORTE, Monterrey, Mexico, 21-V-99
[32] Cf. SERRANO, Rafael, ” Aborto ilegal, no clandestino”, in ACEPRENSA, 168/91, Madrid, Spain, 1991
[33] JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Evangelium vitae, 25-III-95, n. 58
[34] Cf. “Justicia argentina otorga subsidio a bebé por nacer”, in ACI Digital, http://www.aciprensa.com, 8-V-99
[35] Cf. “Italia: Un Ayuntamiento ayuda a las mujeres que no abortan,” in ZENIT, http://www.zenit.org, 5-VI-00
[36] Cf. “Milán: ayudas para evitar el aborto por motivos económicos” in ACEPRENSA, 185/99, Madrid, Spain, 29-XII-99
[37] Cf. “Cuando llega un hijo inesperado, in ACEPRENSA, 99/93, Madrid, Spain, 1-VII-93
[38] Cf. “Por una sociedad más acogedora”, in ACEPRENSA, 102/96, Madrid, Spain, 17-VII-96
[39] PARTIDA, Daniel, directly to the author, Hermosillo, Mexico, 13-VI-00
[40] Cf. BARRA, Rodolfo Carlos, Estatuto jurídico del embrión humano, at the III Meeting of Politicians and Legislators of America, Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 3-5, 1999, p. 3
[41] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, 14-IX-98, n. 31-33
[42] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Creo en Dios Padre, 4th Edition, Ed. Palabra, S.A., Madrid, Spain, 1996, pp. 302 and 303
[43] Cf. CHESTERTON, G.K., Charlas, Espasa-Calpe, Austral n° 525, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1945, pp. 14-18
[44] MARÍAS, Julián, “La cuestión del aborto,” in the newspaper EL NORTE, Monterrey, Mexico, 25-XI-99
[45] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, 14-IX-98, n. 49
[46] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, 14-IX-98, n. 43
[47] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, 14-IX-98, n. 47
[48] JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Evangelium vitae, 25-III-95, n. 6
[49] Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 25
[50] Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter IV
[51] JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Evangelium vitae, 25-III-95, n. 62
[52] Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 1703
[53] Cf. SADA, Ricardo, and Alfonso Monroy, Curso de Teología Moral, Editora de Revistas S.A. de C.V., Fifth Edition, Mexico, 1989, pp. 60-62
[54] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, 14-IX-98, n. 98
[55] Cf. Encyclical Humanae vitae, 25-VII-68, n. 4
[56] Cf. Letter Hac nostra aetate, 9-I-1951, n. 21, and Encyclical Humani generis, 12-VIII-1950
[57] First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter III
[58] Cf. First Council of Nicaea, can. 6, year 325; First Council of Constantinople, can. 3, year 381; Fourth Council of Constantinople, can. 17, year 870; Second Vatican Council, decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum, n. 7
[59] Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis cognitum, 29-VI-1896; Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 22
[60] Cf. “Obispos piden identificar a políticos anti-vida y no votar por ellos”, in ACI Digital http://www.aciprensa.com, 1-V-99
[61] “Cf. ONU: Insisten feministas en excluir a la Santa Sede del seno de Naciones Unidas,” in the newspaper El Heraldo de México, Mexico City, 4-IV-00
[62] SERVICIO ESPECIAL DE INFORMACIONES, nº 239, Mexico City, 15-V-83, p. 3
