Christianity and abortion

[9] Daniel Schiff maintains that some early Christians did not view as homicide the elimination of a fetus not yet "formed" and animated by a human soul.

As such, Canon 1398 provides that "a person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication" from the Church, which can only be removed when that individual seeks penance and obtains absolution.

[3]: 88–90, 136 [41]: 112 With the papal bull Apostolicae Sedis moderationi of 1869, Pope Pius IX, without making a distinction about the stage of pregnancy, listed as subject to an excommunication from which only a bishop could grant absolution those who effectively procured an abortion.

The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church states that, if it is because of a direct threat to her life that a woman interrupts her pregnancy, especially if she already has other children, she is not to be excommunicated from the church because of this sin, which however she must confess to a priest and fulfill the penance that he assigns: In case of a direct threat to the life of a mother if her pregnancy continues, especially if she has other children, it is recommended to be lenient in the pastoral practice.

The woman who interrupted pregnancy in this situation shall not be excluded from the Eucharistic communion with the Church provided that she has fulfilled the canon of Penance assigned by the priest who takes her confession.

[61]The document also acknowledges that abortions often are a result of poverty and helplessness and that the Church and society should "work out effective measures to protect motherhood."

[62]: 45 [63] It also states that abortion is an acceptable option in cases of rape, incest, danger to the health or life of the mother, or where the fetus will not survive beyond birth.

[68] Jehovah's Witnesses hold a strong anti-abortion stance, based on their interpretation of the Bible, and view abortion as a serious sin tantamount to murder.

[69] They believe that deliberately inducing an abortion where the "sole purpose of which is to avoid the birth of an unwanted child" is an "act of high crime" in the eyes of God.

[73] However, if the mother is deemed to be repentant, she may be formally reproved, imposing restrictions (such as being prohibited from commenting during meetings or conducting group prayers).

During the 1971 Southern Baptist Convention, the delegates passed a resolution recognizing that "Christians in the American society today are faced with difficult decisions about abortion", stating that laws should recognize the "sanctity of human life, including fetal life", and calling upon Southern Baptists to work for laws allowing abortion in extreme cases such as rape, severe fetal deformity, and the health of the mother.

[88] W. Barry Garrett wrote in the Baptist Press, "Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the [Roe v. Wade] Supreme Court Decision.

[90] Today, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, opposes elective abortion except to save the life of the mother.

[91] Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from 1988 to 2013, said that he believes abortion is more damaging than anything else, even poverty.

In 1980 it stated that: "In the light of our conviction that the foetus has the right to live and develop as a member of the human family, we see abortion, the termination of that life by the act of man, as a great moral evil.

"[93] The Episcopal Church in the United States of America has taken a nuanced position and has passed resolutions at its triannual General Convention.

[96] However, in December 2007, an all-woman committee representing the Melbourne diocese recommended that abortion be "decriminalised", on the basis of the ethical view that "the moral significance [of the embryo] increases with the age and development of the foetus".

The church has stated that abortion "is not a moral option, except as a tragically unavoidable byproduct of medical procedures necessary to prevent the death of another human being, viz., the mother.

[104] The Methodist Church of Great Britain believes its members should work toward the elimination of the need for abortion by advocating for social support for mothers.

The termination of any form of human life cannot be regarded superficially and abortion should not be available on demand, but should remain subject to a legal framework, to responsible counselling and to medical judgement.

[106] Within the Coalition's website is this statement, "Subsequently, if sex serves purposes beyond reproduction, then a woman has the legal right to both prevent and interrupt a pregnancy".

Generally, many Conservative or centre-right parties throughout the world are varied in their opinions surrounding abortion and the rights of women, reproductive and bodily.

[137] The CCS counseled women with unwanted pregnancies and even provided referral to licensed physicians willing to perform the procedure for a national total of at least 450,000 people for safe abortions prior to 1973.

[142] An earlier study by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research determined U.S. Protestants to have an abortion index of 0.69, Catholics 1.01, Jews 1.08, and non-Judeo-Christian religions 0.78.

[148] According to some, the magnitude of the sin was, for the early Christians, on a level with general sexual immorality or other lapses;[149] according to others, they saw it as "an evil no less severe and social than oppression of the poor and needy".

[150] The society in which Christianity expanded was one in which abortion, infanticide and exposition were commonly used to limit the number of children (especially girls) that a family had to support.

[151][152] These methods were often used also when a pregnancy or birth resulted from sexual licentiousness, including marital infidelity, prostitution and incest, and Bakke holds that these contexts cannot be separated from abortion in early Christianity.

"[156] Tertullian, another Church Father, provides an identical defense in his Apology to Emperor Septimius Severus (197): "In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance.

[147] Bakke writes, "Since an increasing number of Christian parents were poor and found it difficult to look after their children, the theologians were forced to take into account this situation and reflect anew on the question.

[44][153] Nonetheless, he harshly condemned the procedure: "Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born.