Through its post-abortion ministry, Project Rachel, the Catholic Church has been helping mothers and fathers find forgiveness and healing.
In The Gospel of Life
, Blessed John Paul II writes:
“Life is always a good. …The life which God gives
Through its post-abortion ministry, Project Rachel, the Catholic Church has been helping mothers and fathers find forgiveness and healing.
In The Gospel of Life
, Blessed John Paul II writes:
“Life is always a good. …The life which God gives man is quite different from the life of all other living creatures, inasmuch as man … is a manifestation of God in the world, a sign of his presence, a trace of his glory. … Man has been given a sublime dignity, based on the intimate bond which unites him to his Creator: in man there shines forth a reflection of God himself.”2
Each human being is unique, unrepeatable, and infinitely precious to God. In becoming man and by his death on the cross, Jesus showed us the incomparable value of each human life, making his human life the “instrument of the salvation of all humanity!” (The Gospel of Life
, no. 33). What is abortion?
Abortion is “the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth” (The Gospel of Life
, no.58). A new human being comes into existence at conception, i.e., the moment the sperm and egg fuse. Even before the first cell division, the new human being’s 23 chromosomes from mom and 23 from dad already contain the child’s unique DNA— the entire genetic blueprint and instructions for developing from a single-celled person to an adult. Remarkably, when only a few hours old, the embryo sends a signal to the mother’s immune system not to attack him! Development is rapid: On day 22, an embryo’s heart begins beating, and by day 44, his brain waves can be recorded. Thanks to ultrasound technology, we can watch babies in the womb behaving very much like newborns—smiling, kicking, grasping, hiccupping, and sucking their thumb. Abortion has been condemned throughout history
Though science alone proves that human life begins at conception, the Church is obligated to speak out on the profound moral, spiritual, and social implications of abortion.
For almost 2,000 years—from the 1st century A.D. until about 50 years ago—abortion and infanticide were considered crimes in every nation and community informed by faith in Christ. Still, like murder, abortions have always occurred. And over time, laws were enacted to establish penalties for the crime of abortion, in order to protect the lives of unborn children and protect vulnerable pregnant women from being forced to undergo abortion. Prominent feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries called abortion “child murder” and “the ultimate exploitation of women.”
Efforts to legalize abortion
The majority of Americans opposed the killing of unborn children in the 1960s and early 1970s. But a small number of prominent activists hailed the newly available birth control pill as the key to women’s career success, empowerment, and “sexual liberation—the ability to have sex in the same way that guys always have, without guilt, fear, or strings attached.”3
Moral problems aside, the pill often fails to prevent pregnancy, so abortion was promoted as a back-up for contraceptive failure.”4
Other early advocates for liberalized abortion laws were “population bomb” scaremongers who claimed that one-third of Americans would starve to death by 2000. Controlling the rate of population growth in poor developing countries was soon to become official U.S. government policy. Domestic racism and elitism were also factors in the legalization of abortion.5
Population control groups teamed with other abortion promoters in lobbying states to enact exceptions to existing abortion bans. About ten states did so before the fledgling grassroots pro-life movement began successfully countering these efforts. So abortion advocates turned to the courts, where it was easier to convince five justices to lift restrictions on abortion, than it had been trying to win pro-abortion majorities in state legislatures. Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton
The Supreme Court’s 1973 decisions striking down the abortion laws of all fifty states, without any plausible basis in the Constitution for doing so
, shocked almost everyone. Prominent legal scholars condemned Roe and Doe as examples of judicial extremism. Even so, their commentaries did not grasp how extreme the new abortion license was or would become. Although the decisions appear to permit an abortion ban in the third trimester of pregnancy, any such “ban” would have to allow abortions throughout all nine months for reasons of the mother’s “health.” 