However, this does not mean the Catholic Church teaches that a direct abortion, even when intended to save the life of a woman, is not sinful.
[2][3] This view is also held in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, which says that "the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever".
[4] According to Elio Sgreccia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a great number of indications for such abortions have lost their raison d'être.
He further asserts that the progressive extension of these indications beyond the scope of medicine has often been driven by political reasons, part of which are related to the eugenics movement.
The Holy See Press Office subsequently reiterated the distinction between direct and indirect abortion, and commented that the allocution merely re-stated the Church's opposition to some sections of the gender-oriented Maputo Protocol.