Doctrine hasn’t changed for 2,000 years

THE teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on abortion has been consistent for nearly 2,000 years. It has always maintained that abortion is a grave sin comparable to murder.

Catholic doctrine says that a foetus has life and a soul from the moment of conception, and that no one has the right to take that life away. This applies even when the pregnancy is a result of rape.

The Church regards rape as an evil crime inflicted on an innocent victim. However, in Catholic eyes, to follow rape with an abortion is to perpetrate a second crime against another innocent victim, the unborn child.

Roman Catholic loathing of abortion has been the guiding force behind much of the pro-life movement which has resisted the spread of legalised abortion and euthanasia over the past 50 years.

The Second Vatican Council in the mid1960s declared: ‘Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.’

Those who undergo or procure abortion suffer excommunication – a ban from attending church and receiving sacraments. In 1996, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales reminded Catholic politicians of the importance of a firm line in an election letter to the faithful. The document, the Common Good, was particularly aimed at Tony Blair, a regular attender at Catholic worship who was shortly to sweep to power in the 1997 Labour landslide. While a majority of English Catholics leaned to Labour, Church leader Cardinal Hume was no admirer of Mr Blair and the verdict on the future Prime Minister’s pro-abortion views was sharp.

The election of Pope Francis in 2013 raised hopes among Catholic liberals that the Vatican might shift to a less restrictive position. Francis corrected this in 2014, calling abortion a horrific symptom of a throwaway culture.