Mormons and Catholics

[Ed. Note: This is valuable and welcome submission was contributed by one of our astute Catholic readers, who comments under the monicker "Bear". It helps set the record straight on some of the unintentional inaccuracies made in the previous entry, Thoughts on Abortion and provides some much needed explanation of the Roman Catholic Church's current teachings as well.]

I. TEACHING ON ABORTION

Firstly, Catholicism considers abortion to be evil because it is the direct, intentional killing of a human person. The Catechism states in paragraph 2270:

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person-among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

It goes on to affirm from there that this has been the constant teaching of the Church from the beginning. Sources indicating this include the Bible itself, the Didache, and various non-canonical epistles and other writings from the early Church.

Oftentimes, early Christian scholars are cited in their speculations of when “ensoulment” takes place in the developing human, the implication being that the Church has changed its teaching on when the fetus becomes a full human person.

Two notes regarding this: Firstly, the Church has never had, and still does not have, an official doctrine decreeing when the “soul enters the fetus.” Rather, it definitively teaches that the killing of a human being is gravely wrong, and it has relied on the developments of science, especially, to shed light on the development that the human body goes through. The speculation that earlier scholars engaged in on this subject must be considered in the context of their scientific ignorance of the biology human development. Given the Catholic understanding that the human is a composite of body and soul, not merely a soul “injected” into a body, current scientific knowledge shows that there is no stage which could be considered the beginning of a human life other than conception, or the moment of fertilization of the egg by the sperm. At that stage, two separate entities without their own potential to develop and with their own incomplete, haploid genetic codes combine to form a new biological entity with a unique, complete, diploid genetic structure and the potential to follow the natural course of human development.

What is evident, then, to the Church now is that the human is a human from the moment of conception. Pope John Paul II says, in Evangelium Vitae:

The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life.
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Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, “from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and … modern genetic science offers clear confirmation.
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Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?

The second crucial thing to note, however, is that all the speculation which the earlier scholars pursued was, in a sense, purely academic. They still upheld the teaching that directly procured abortion was still a grave sin, even if it occurred before ensoulment took place. This is because of the Catholic prohibition on impeding the natural course of the voluntary sexual act, as in our current prohibition of contraception. Thus, it could be said that even if today the Church thought that the fetus was not a person, abortion would still be gravely sinful and forbidden.

II. EXCEPTIONS TO ABORTION?

Frequently, those who are in general opposed to abortion qualify their opposition with certain exceptions. We will now evaluate those from the Catholic perspective:

A. Rape and incest. The exception given in the case of rape is incomprehensible to Catholicism. What difference does it make to the validity of the life of the child that the conception took place as a violent, non-consensual act? While full sympathy is given to the victim of the rape, Catholicism views an abortion in the case of rape as “punishing the child for the sins of the father.” What real difference is there between the fetus in a woman who conceived through a normal marital relationship and a woman who conceived through rape? There is none that the Church can see, and especially none that would legitimize aborting the child. The case of incest is similar. While it is a profoundly disturbing situation psychologically, there is no warrant to kill a human life that is the product of incest.

B. The health of the mother. Here it is often noted that a woman may legitimately, in Catholic teaching, pursue medical treatment which will cause the death of the baby in situation such as ectopic pregnancy or cancer. The reason for this is the ethical principle known as the principle of double-effect. This holds that an act which has a direct, intended good effect and an indirect, unintended bad effect may be legitimately undertaken for serious reasons. The principle can be invoked if four conditions are met:

1. The act being undertaken must be morally good or at least neutral.
2. The good effect must come about as a result of the act itself, not as a result of the bad effect.
3. The good must be willed or intended, and the bad effect must be merely tolerated, (i.e. if there were a way to avoid it, it would be willingly avoided.)
4. The good effect must be at least as important as the bad effect, (i.e. there must be a grave enough reason for tolerating the evil.)

Thus a woman who receives a life-saving medical treatment, such as cancer treatments, or the removal of a diseased or damaged organ such as the uterus or a fallopian tube has done no wrong, as long as the life of the mother and not the death of the child was not the intended result. These acts are not abortions, they are medical procedures which indirectly and unintentionally result in the death of the child.

This principle does not allow any procedure, however, which directly kills the child in order to attain the end of securing the mother’s health. So you may not deliberately procure an abortion even when being pregnant presents a danger to the mother’s health. This would not fulfill the first, second, or third conditions. The action undertaken, killing an innocent life, is intrinsically evil. The good effect, the mother’s health, comes about as a result of the bad effect, the abortion. Lastly, the bad effect is intended, as it is the direct act taking place.

Thus there is no health-of-the mother exception to direct abortion in Catholicism.

In these difficult cases, Christians must provide support and sympathy to the mother and place her in the mercy of God, in whom the mysteries of suffering and tragedy find their solution in the Person of Christ, who suffered for man on the cross.