Abortion “Rights”?
“Abortion…cannot be a human right – it is the very opposite.”
Pope Benedict XVI
“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation…from the moment of conception”.
(CCC, 2273)
What About Catholic Politicians’ “Privately Against…”?
“How long will you straddle the issue?” (1 Kings 18:21)
On the question, is abortion a human right, politicians, particularly Catholic politicians, have clear, resounding guidance from the Magisterium. Life is a right. Abortion is not.
“Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound…to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature.” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 231)
“Politicians and legislators…as servants of the common good, are duty bound to defend the fundamental right to life“. (Pope Benedict XVI)
“Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent…in the first place infants hidden in the mother’s womb.” (Pope Pius XI, 67)
“The life of each is equally sacred, and no one has the power, not even the public authority, to destroy it.”
Pope Pius XI, 64
The Law and the Legislator
There are can be no abortion “rights” as they contradict the right to life, itself! “These human rights [do not] depend on nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person.” (CCC, 2273)
“The law is not obliged to sanction everything, but it cannot act contrary to a law which is deeper and more majestic than any human law”. (Declaration on Procured Abortion, 21)
It is “never licit…take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or vote for it”. (Evangelium Vitae, 73)
“I appeal to political leaders not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness, nor to abolish in practice your legal system’s acknowledgment that abortion is wrong. I say this out of a concern for humanity.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
“[N]o one can ever renounce this responsibility, especially when he or she has a legislative or decision-making mandate”. (Evangelium Vitae, 90)
“[T]hose who are not in the community cannot take Communion…they are out of the community, excommunicated, they are ‘excommunicated’”. (Pope Francis)
