By Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, a member organization of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

There is much in the Catholic tradition that supports the pro-choice position. There is a mistaken belief that the Catholic church has spoken definitively and unchangingly on abortion. However, a careful reading of church documents shows that while the prohibition of abortion is a serious teaching, room remains for Catholics to support the legalization of abortion and even its morality in a wide range of circumstances. And an examination of core principles of Catholic theology reveals a tradition that respects the capacity of individuals to make moral decisions.

In the case of legality, a Catholic can point to no less an authority than Thomas Aquinas, who held that it was not necessary for the church to seek laws that conform to all its moral teachings. Aquinas points out that where a law against an evil is not likely to be enforced, greater evil would ensue if it were passed—the overall disrespect for authority that occurs when laws are not enforced. Moreover, at the second Vatican Council the church accepted the principle that laws must not prevent people of other faiths from practicing their faith. Since many religions support a woman’s right to choose, laws against abortion would violate their rights.

Yet the church continues to turn a blind eye to its own texts and history in insisting that its current position on abortion leaves no room for dissent or individual choice. For example, why when Catholic teaching gives primacy to conscience does the church insist that there is no room for personal decision-making on the abortion question? A deep regard for individual conscience is at the heart of church teaching on moral matters. The church teaches that Catholics must always obey their consciences, even when in conflict with church teaching. And the little-known but well-respected Catholic moral principle of “probablism” holds that if an individual can point to respectable theological sources within the church to support an action or belief currently “forbidden,” that person may choose that line of action with impunity.

Secondly, how can the Catholic church say there is no room for dissent on the issue of abortion when the official teaching forbidding abortions has never been proclaimed infallibly? In the most recent papal encyclical, which deals extensively and forebodingly with abortion, references to the teaching against abortion as infallible were removed from the final text because the teaching does not meet the traditional tests for infallibility. One shortfall is the absence of a definitive teaching or factual way to determine at what point a fetus becomes a person. And infallibility requires a consistent church position on the teaching, while the church has favored varying opinions regarding the moment of personhood throughout history.

And finally, there is the very different way the church has dealt with “life” when men are the decision-makers rather than women. The church has historically trusted men to make the decision about when to take life in war by giving them the “just war” theory. There is no “just abortion” theory for women. Catholics who believe in justice and equality reluctantly conclude that the absolute opposition of the church to abortion has more to do with the inequality of women in the church than with respect for life. A commitment to equality between men and women means that women’s consciences and moral agency must be respected as much as men’s.

Catholics for a Free Choice

Written in 1999, Posted May 26, 2006