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Excerpt from Gospel of Life...
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: procured abortion
is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it
is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his
or her existence, extending from conception to birth.
The moral gravity of procured
abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that
we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we
consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated
is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more
absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this
human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an
unjust aggressor! He or she 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.
The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and
care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb. And yet
sometimes it is precisely the mother herself who makes the
decision and asks for the child to be eliminated, and who
then goes about having it done.
It is true that the decision to have
an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother,
insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of
conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of
convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain
important values such as her own health or a decent standard
of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it
is feared that the child to be born would live in such
conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take
place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them,
however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate
killing of an innocent human being.
Excerpt from Declaration on
Procured Abortion
11. The first right
of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some
are more precious, but this one is fundamental - the
condition of all the others. Hence it must be protected
above all others. It does not belong to society, nor does it
belong to public authority in any form to recognize this
right for some and not for others: all discrimination is
evil, whether it be founded on race, sex, color or religion.
It is not recognition by another that constitutes this
right. This right is antecedent to its recognition; it
demands recognition and it is strictly unjust to refuse it.
12. Any discrimination based on the various stages of life
is no more justified than any other discrimination. The
right to life remains complete in an old person, even one
greatly weakened; it is not lost by one who is incurably
sick. The right to life is no less to be respected in the
small infant just born than in the mature person. In
reality, respect for human life is called for from the time
that the process of generation begins. From the time that
the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither
that of the father nor of 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.
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For a listing of Crisis Pregnancy Centres in BC -