Life is the first right, on which all the others are based,
and which cannot be recuperated once it is lost.
– St. John Paul II.

This essay is intended to help pro-life apologists address the issue of abortion in parishes, homes, and the public square. Applying the teachings of Christ in a Fallen world requires pragmatism and love. At times, one must also be peacefully ruthless with the tools at hand to make progress. The life and work of St. Francis Cabrini is an example of the holy determination required.

As a parish priest, I often hear clergy and laity attempting to justify their support of pro-abortion political candidates by claiming other social issues (immigration, healthcare, global warming, racism, hatred of the president, etc.) are of equal or greater moral value/weight/seriousness than abortion. “Good Catholics just need to follow their consciences when voting.”

I believe this notion is the result of relativism and the failure of the Church to teach with clarity and unity. Many in the Church have a false understanding of the role of church and state, which has led to confusion about the responsibilities, rights, and duties of Catholics and Catholic politicians. The separation of church and state has nothing to do with the individual voter whose faith and moral principles should reflect their public actions and political choices. In fact, freedom of religion protects believers and religious groups who practice their faith through their public lives. Genuine faith is evident not just in Church activities, but in all aspects of life, including politics.

The Human Person & the U.S. Constitution

We are a body animated by an eternal soul. Without a soul, the body of the human person is dead. We believe that the souls can exist without the body, but body has no life without a soul. The soul is born in the body at the moment of conception. One of the great things about the United States is the constitution. The Bill of Rights and all our foundational documents represent the best attempt yet to codify the dignity of the human person as the basis of an excellent social order. Over and over we see that the rights of one person cannot to be negated by the rights of the many. We are not members of a collective, subjects of a potentate, and our leaders are not divine. The right to freedom is shared by all of this nation’s citizens. We believe in the dignity of every human person, and therefore value life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness above all.

Freedom is the ability to recognize, choose, and do the greatest good. For this to be possible, one also needs physical freedom, meaning being unencumbered by financial, political, physical, or mental impediments (persecution, addiction, etc.). Being able to recognize, comprehend, and choose goodness and virtue over the lesser goods of sin and vice.

Our freedoms have corresponding duties. If human life is sacred, society needs to codify this truth and devise a way to protect her citizens. Life and the right to live (continue living once life has begun), are the foundation upon which all else is built. The main difference between Earth and Mars is life. The other differences make life as we know it, impossible on Mars. Among living things, only human beings have self-awareness, discursive reason, and a capacity to love as God loves (agape). This truth tells us that the protection of innocent human life comes first, and without this understanding, nothing else matters. To “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is the only way for an objective moral order to be established and succeed!

Slavery/Holocaust Analogies

Abortion in America is exactly equivalent to slavery in the following ways;

1. Incrementalism: Proponents are never satisfied. Infanticide and euthanasia followed.
2. Dehumanization of the victims: Obvious! Nothing could be more dehumanizing. . .
3. Violent attacks upon those who defend the victims!
4. Legal Parallels — Fought through courts to the Supreme Court. Bad precedent/Dred Scott.
5. Historical Political Coincidences — Then and now, Democrats are the forefront of evil!

During slavery, slave-owners thought they had the right to do whatever they wanted to a slave. Imagine the result if the politicians and abolitionists had said, “I don’t believe in slavery, I don’t own any slaves, so it’s not my business.” Slavery was settled law for several generations until it was abolished.

Opponents to slavery centered their arguments on the understanding of personhood. Like the slave owners, abortion activists try to shape the debate by referring to unborn babies as a fetus, fetal tissue, or embryo to dehumanize the human person.

Apologists for slavery held that blacks were sub-human or mere animals. In Roe v. Wade the word “human” was used instead of “person.” The ploy was an attempt to differentiate between those in the womb versus others. If the baby in utero is not yet human, then abortion is okay. Words cannot change the nature of the life of the human being in question. Perhaps the most insane euphemism is to describe abortion as a “women’s health” issue. Pregnant women should see doctors, not because they have a disease or tumor, but because the body is working as designed. Due to the physical and mental stresses involved, mother and child often benefit from a physicians’ care to have the most successful outcomes.

There are also parallels with the Holocaust. The journey to become cultures of death began with eugenics policies in Germany and America. As a dictator, it took Hitler one decade to engineer the mass murder of six million people he considered to be unworthy, defective, and sub-human. Our escalation in depravity is slower, but it’s also deadlier, and has no end in sight. Then and now, killing began with the babies in utero, then expanded to include all who were deemed expendable. Euthanasia is now legal in several states, while other states are legalizing infanticide. This week (2/27/19), the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill to protect babies who survive abortions because 44 Democrats opposed the measure (60 votes needed).

Catholics can no more support pro-abortion politicians than they could support advocates of slavery or fascism. Nor can Catholics idly stand by and do nothing.

Virtue Ethics

As Catholics, we do well to use a form of morality called “virtue ethics.” We are called to choose the greatest good versus lesser goods or sins. There are formulas and principles for all conflict or complex moral choices. There are no provisions that allow one to commit evil, so that a perceived good can occur. Pregnant women have two choices, one morally good and the other (abortion) intrinsically morally evil. The act of abortion cannot be excused by factors, i.e., age, poverty, over-population, carbon footprint, wrong sex, etc. Catholics are not permitted to choose evil. The principle of double effect, under certain clearly defined conditions, permits us to perform an act that has a good and an evil effect.

Others try to apply the lesser of two evils to justify abortion. An example might be a person driving a car while the brakes fail. The driver can veer right and run over one person or veer left into a crowd of people (both evil choices). So, the driver should veer right. As stated, pregnancy presents some women with two options, one good and other evil. Since we cannot choose evil (directly choose the death of an innocent human being), having the child is the only option.

Comparing abortion to other current social issues is absurd. No one more innocent could be imagined than a child in the mother’s womb. The womb, to those who value the miracle of life, is a holy place of safety, security, nourishment, newness, growth, awareness, learning, and infinite innocence! Our Lord himself hallowed the wombs of all women by the power of the Holy Spirit in His Incarnation.

I have heard parishioners and politicians attempting to divert the issue by claiming the status of a child in the womb is “beyond my pay-grade!” Well, if one is unsure, one ought not take a chance on killing an innocent human being. This argument is illogical when applied to other issues. “It’s just not my place to oppose slavery. How should I know who’s human and who’s not?” A person who respects the dignity of human life, but is unsure of the morality of abortion, would never take a chance on legalizing mass death.

Degrees of Sin and Punishment

One can deduce from the Torah that God believes innocent human life to be sacred and the intentional taking of that life to be a very serious sin. The Sixth Commandment (in both lists — Exodus and Deuteronomy) is the prohibition of murder! It’s listed after our relationship/duties toward God and honoring one’s parents, but before adultery, stealing, false witness, and coveting in all forms. If one looks at this list of sins, one can see an order. This order is reflected in canon law and civil law by ascribing penalties/correctives to fit the sin/crime. There are mortal and venial sins, just as there are felonies and misdemeanors. The same standard is evident in the rules for sports, schools, and organizations. Within each category, the penalties, correctives, and solutions range from prayerful repentance, confession, penance, and absolution (could include restitution). Civil/criminal matters are usually settled with judgments, fines, probation, community service, restitution, jail, prison, parole, or the death penalty. Canonical matters are settled in the same pattern with penalties designed to be fit the crime. In both forums, authorities hope that the guilty will repent and attain virtue.

The Hope of Repentance of the Guilty

The Body of Faith is replete with hierarchies, levels of teaching, levels of faith, foundational teachings in the Creed. Canon Law shows the gravity of the sin of abortion through the eyes of the Magisterium: During the Jubilee Year of Mercy (2016), Pope Francis gave individual confessors (priests) the authority to absolve sins of abortion! Canon law does not have a similar caveat for other sins due to seriousness:

Can. 1397 A person who commits a homicide or who kidnaps, detains, mutilates, or gravely wounds a person by force or fraud is to be punished with the privations and prohibitions of can. 1336 according to the gravity of the delict. Homicide against the persons mentioned in can. 1370, however, is to be punished by the penalties established there.

Can. 1398 A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication.

Cooperation — Formal vs. Informal

Consider those of us who want nothing to do with research or the results of research, connected with embryonic stem cells. The connection is informal and it’s not always possible to determine the origin of a medicine. Likewise, for my personal needs, I want to avoid hospitals where abortions are performed, but that’s not often possible.

Grave sin on the scale of the abortion industry is unlike other social evils because it’s 100% direct and 100% deadly. All things related to emigration or healthcare are not evil. I’d bet that the vast majority are thankful for their emigration and healthcare experiences.

The act of abortion is premeditated, direct, and intentional! By premeditated, I mean the mother utilized discursive reason to make a decision, which includes input from numerous sources. The analysis is always offered in the objective sense and in no way in intended to judge the culpability of all mothers. Nevertheless, a mother of seemingly sound mind, in a particular set of circumstances, makes a decision to end the life of her child. This decision is direct, meaning the act would not occur otherwise. The mother’s decision directly leads to the death of her unborn child. The mother may reason that a doctor or nurse killed the baby, and they did, but that has no bearing on the mother’s decision.

The decision to have an abortion is intentional. The mother’s intention is to end the life and existence of the baby in her womb. The mother will undoubtedly cite other ends that she hopes to achieve by having an abortion, but nothing will ever turn an evil act good! The reasons for having an abortion justify (in the mind of the mother) killing her baby. Saving the entire world would not justify the intentional killing of one innocent human being.

It seems obvious that abortion is not only murder, but the most serious type of murder. Abortion cannot seriously be equated with immigration or other issues. Many social problems are matters of life and death, but are not specific, direct, are not certain to occur, are not intended to take innocent human life, etc. The connection is removed by numerous people involved and an impact that’s usually far removed in distance. Immigration is a vastly complex issue involving millions of people. The connection between the voter, candidate, bill, law, and consequences may seem indirect, but the legalization of abortion could not happen otherwise.

Christians have a “grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. . . . This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it.”¹

Voting

In the Gospel of Life, St. Pope John Paul II also made a declarative statement in regard to voters and lawmakers on abortion and related issues:

I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God . . . Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.²

If all the candidates are pro-abortion, the voter is obligated to choose the person most likely to cause the least damage. Otherwise:

It would not be morally permissible to vote for candidates who support anti-family policies, including reproductive health (in the particular understanding being presented in the recent debates, which includes, among others, promotion of abortifacients, penalties for parents who do not allow their adolescent children to engage in sexual acts, etc.), or any other moral evil such as abortion, divorce, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Otherwise one becomes an accomplice to the moral evil in question.³

Pro-abortion candidates have disqualified themselves from receiving a Catholic’s vote. Voting for such a candidate, knowing they are pro-abortion, is to become an accomplice in moral evil and is a mortal sin.⁴ A well-formed Christian conscience does not allow voting for individuals or laws that contradict the central tenets of faith and morals. Christians cannot separate or disconnect a particular aspect of life from the Catholic faith. There cannot be two parallel lives: the ‘spiritual life,’ and one’s life in the world. Our lives in Christ are to bear fruit in every part of our existence.⁵

So, What Should Clergy Say to the Faithful?

Our clergy should make clear that it’s the duty of the faithful to battle the greatest sin, abortion, peacefully. Stopping the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being in the womb, requires the people of God to act in unity at every opportunity. Voting is greatest opportunity most of us have to bring the truths of the Catholic faith to bear in the public square.

As to politicians, there are countless issues that elected officials directly effect. Their participation in this holocaust is like no other. They pass legislation that facilitates, funds, furthers, and promotes this incredible evil. Hundreds of thousands of babies die each year as a direct result of their actions. Almost all laws and policies make a statement to society as to the morality of any given act. I seriously question the character of any politician who thinks it should be lawful to kill a baby in the womb and sell the parts. Such people should be nowhere near the halls of power. There’s no social justice without protecting all innocent life.

Those who vote for the Democrats cannot pretend that they are not voting for a party that champions the greatest carnage in human history. Those who empower these people because of policies on climate change, while ignoring the corpses of millions, are morally confused, deluded, and schizophrenic. Those who by commission or omission participate in the culture of death will incur judgment: “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me. And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Mt 25:45–46).

Conclusion

This is a time or era where unity is essential to achieve the goal of ending legalized abortion. If the Church was unified, the best way to bring her teaching on abortion to bear in the public square is obviously voting, it’s the most effective, the most direct, it’s easy, it’s free, and it places the number one evil on Earth in jeopardy. Voting is one of the unique blessings in life. It’s like being a confessor of the faith (one who speaks the truth of Christ under duress), because we can go on record in this world and the next as our brother’s keeper.

The killing of the Holy Innocents via abortion is the worst sin of our time. Catholics should never vote for a pro-abortion candidate in any circumstance. If a person will not vote pro-life candidates, they should not vote at all:

In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to “take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it”.⁶

Based on the statements of two popes, the teaching of numerous bishops, the Natural and Divine Law, the Body of Faith, and prayerful logic, I conclude that Catholics can never vote for, or in any way support, pro-abortion political candidates. As our brother’s keeper, we have a holy and clear duty to peacefully oppose the greatest evil in our lifetimes.