[4] The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or foetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.
[6] Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, as head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has argued that canon 1398 should also be interpreted in a sense that applies to embryonic stem cell researchers, given that the deliberate termination of embryonic cell reproduction is included as a form of abortion in official Church documents such as Donum Vitae, Evangelium Vitae and Dignitas Personae.
[7] In the Catholic Church, excommunication is an ecclesiastical censure[8] imposed primarily not as punishment for the deed done, but for the purpose of breaking contumacy and reintegrating the offender in the community.
[9] An excommunicated person is not cut off from the Church, but is barred from receiving the Eucharist and the other sacraments, and from taking a ministerial part in the liturgy (reading, bringing the offerings, etc.
[15] In 2009, Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife stated that the automatic excommunication had been incurred by the mother and the doctors who had an abortion performed on a 9-year-old girl who was four months pregnant with twins resulting from abuse by her stepfather.