The official teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 oppose all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy a zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.
[1] However, the Church does recognize as morally legitimate certain acts which indirectly result in the death of the fetus, as when the direct purpose is removal of a cancerous womb.
[5] In addition to teaching that abortion is immoral, the Catholic Church also generally makes public statements and takes actions in opposition to its legality.
[19] The US Conference of Catholic Bishops considers Augustine's reflections on abortion to be of little value in the present day because of the limitations of the science of embryology at that time.
[13] Later writers such as John Chrysostom and Caesarius of Arles, as well as later Church councils (e.g. Lerida and Braga II), also condemned abortion as "gravely wrong", without making a distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses nor defining precisely in what stage of pregnancy human life began.
[25]: 205–211 In the 13th century, physician and cleric Peter of Spain, who according to some sources became Pope John XXI in 1276, wrote a book called Thesaurus Pauperum (Treasure of the Poor) containing a long list of early-stage abortifacients, including rue, pennyroyal, and other mints.
Following Aristotle's view, it was commonly held by some "leading Catholic thinkers" in early Church history that a human being did not come into existence as such immediately on conception, but only some weeks later.
[15] A few decades after Anselm's death, a Catholic collection of canon law, in the Decretum Gratiani, stated that "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body".
[42] When, in the 17th century, Francis Torreblanca approved abortions aimed merely at saving a woman's good name, the Holy Office (what is now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith), at that time headed by Pope Innocent XI, condemned the proposition that "it is lawful to procure abortion before ensoulment of the fetus lest a girl, detected as pregnant, be killed or defamed".
[47] A letter published in The Medical Record in 1895 spoke disapprovingly of the Jesuit priest Augustine Lehmkuhl, who considered craniotomy lawful when used to save the mother's life.
[48] The origin of the report was an article in a German medical journal denounced as false in the American Ecclesiastical Review of the same year, which said that while Lehmkuhl had at an earlier stage of discussion admitted doubts and advanced tentative ideas, he had later adopted a view in full accord with the negative decision pronounced in 1884 and 1889 by the Sacred Penitentiary, which in 1869 had refrained from making a pronouncement.
The Second Vatican Council declared: "Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes".
The argument that these methods amount to an indirect abortion revolves around the idea that the removal of the Fallopian tube or, in the case of methotrexate, the chemical destruction of the trophoblastic cells (those which go on to form the placenta), does not constitute a direct act upon the developing embryo.
[77] Pope Francis reaffirmed this position in March 2013, when he stated that "[people] cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged.
"[92] The document cautions further:Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.
In what the Los Angeles Times called a key admonition, he added: "It has never been easy to accept the Gospel teaching in its entirety, and it never will be".
[107][108] Many, however, suggest that this is the problem, that some of the strongest anti-abortion advocates seem unconcerned about critical social issues in the complete spectrum of the Church's moral teaching.
[109] The US Bishops have called on Catholics to weigh all the threats to life and human dignity before placing their vote:[110] the tag "intrinsic evil" can lead to an over-simplification of issues.
[111] In his column in the Jesuit magazine America, Professor John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., observed:[112] Most people open to the facts recognize that a human life has begun by the end of the first trimester of a pregnancy.
Motivated by the strong stance of the Belgian bishops, King Baudoin notified the Prime Minister Martens on March 30 that he could not sign the law without violating his conscience as a Catholic.
[119] In March 2009, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said that by securing the abortion of a nine-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather, her mother and the doctors involved were excommunicated latae sententiae.
[131] In September 2013, Archbishop Peter Smith, Vice-President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, decried the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service not to proceed against two doctors who accepted a request to perform an abortion as a means of sex selection, a procedure that is illegal in Britain and that Archbishop Smith described as one expression of what he called the injustice that abortion is to the unwanted child.
[136][137][138][139] In October 2012, Savita Halappanavar died at University Hospital Galway in Ireland, after suffering a miscarriage which led to sepsis (blood poisoning), multiple organ failure, and her death.
New law created by the Irish Parliament allowed for abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy (with an exception to the time limit if the woman's life is at risk).
[144] It is widely believed that the Catholic Church in Poland is the main source of opposition to the liberalization of abortion laws and the reintroduction of sex education in Polish schools in accordance with European standards.
Polling in 1991, coming after the collapse of the past communist regime in Poland, found that about 60% of Polish people supported nonrestrictive abortion laws.
The Vatican initiated disciplinary measures against some of the nuns who signed the statement, sparking controversy among American Catholics, and intra-Catholic conflict on the abortion issue remained news for at least two years in the United States.
Since the Catholic Church views procured abortion as gravely wrong, it considers it a duty to reduce its acceptance by the public and in civil legislation.
[157][158] The Virginia Catholic Conference expressed support for pharmacists who consider that they cannot in conscience be on duty during a sale of emergency contraception, which they believe is the same as abortion.
[159] In response to such concerns, many states in the U.S. have enacted "freedom of conscience" laws that protect the right of medical personnel to refuse to participate in procedures such as abortion.