The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 has brought our country and the pro-life movement to a new political and legal reality. The achievement of that longstanding goal requires us all to consider anew how best to protect unborn life and support families in difficult circumstances.
The Catholic Church has built on our longstanding work supporting vulnerable women and families with initiatives like “Walking with Moms in Need,” a parish-based program geared toward meeting the needs of women and families in local communities.
The program’s website, walkingwithmoms.com, explains that it “works to ensure that any woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, or parenting in difficult circumstances, can turn to her local Catholic Church and be connected with the resources she needs. Volunteers walk with moms throughout the motherhood journey, offering them authentic Christian friendship and ongoing support.”
Many parishes throughout Kentucky are participating in this program and adapting it to their local realities. This is an effort, and an approach, of which we should all be proud. To build a culture of life means loving and supporting people in their real-life circumstances, whatever those may be, and ensuring they have the means to make life-affirming choices.
Others in the pro-life movement have chosen a different approach. A movement favoring so-called “abortion abolition” wants to criminally prosecute women who seek abortions. If “abortion is murder,” the argument goes, then anyone procuring an abortion should be prosecuted.
It is certainly true that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, and the Church, including St. John Paul II and Pope Francis, have used the word “murder” to describe it. And, the Catechism anticipates “penal sanctions” being appropriate in some circumstances.
However, colloquially speaking of murder to highlight the moral gravity of what is happening in an abortion is quite different from the legal definition of murder.
The crime of murder (indeed, all intentional homicides) requires a mental state (premeditation or “malice aforethought”) that is simply not present in the vast majority of women seeking abortion. Women seeking abortions are almost always facing pressures arising from a relationship, financial concerns or other fears.
As Pope Francis wrote, “unborn children (are) the most defenseless and innocent among us. … This defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. … On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty. Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?”
The mind of the Church, and indeed most of the pro-life movement, has long been that women are a second victim of abortion. Penal sanctions might indeed be appropriate in certain circumstances, for a provider or other involved person, but not the woman. To impose punishment on the woman is to victimize her a second time.
Jason D. Hall is the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, which represents the bishops of Kentucky on matters of public policy.
