Responding to abortion

by Editor · November 9, 2011

On November 12, it will be 15 years since South Africa�s parliament passed the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which gave the country one of the most liberal abortion legislations in the world.

At the time, the Catholic Church and other bodies tried hard to persuade the ruling African National Congress to allow a free vote, so that its MPs could exercise their conscience if they opposed the legalisation of abortion on moral grounds. The ANC did not heed these appeals, thereby indicating that it regarded the abortion Act as a flagship legislation.

In the first ten years of legal abortion in South Africa, more than half a million unborn lives were terminated. Every day, an average of 233 mothers abort their children legally; translating to 85000 per year. That is the equivalent of the entire municipal population of Stellenbosch, Brits or Bethlehem being wiped out every year.

Catholics need not be reminded that abortion violates the sanctity of life and is therefore incompatible with their faith. The bishops of Southern Africa have been resolute in voicing their opposition to abortion, individually and as a conference.

But the local bishops and the Church they lead have also accepted the reality that they will not convince the current legislators that life is sacred because it begins at conception. If the lawmakers don�t take that view, then there is no chance that the abortion law will be repealed. So when the bishops addressed parliamentary hearings on amendments to the abortion law in 2004, they naturally called for its scrapping � but they also set out to limit the negative effects of abortion by seeking to locate some common ground with legislators for the greater good. Among other issues, the bishops stressed the importance of sensitive pre- and post-abortion counselling, recognising that many mothers suffer devastating psychological injury after aborting their child.

Women who consider having an abortion should be fully advised of the potential physiological and psychological risks, as well as of the alternatives that exist. Catholic organisations such as the Mater homes in Durban and Cape Town and the Catholic Women�s League, as well as independent organisations such as Birthright, offer such alternatives. If the government seeks to be genuinely pro-choice (as opposed to being just pro-abortion), it ought to give concrete support to organisations that offer such counseling and alternatives to abortion.

The Church must continue to be outspoken in its opposition to abortion. However, to be persuasive, the pro-life position should not be marked by intemperate rhetoric, inflammatory belligerence and threat of sanction. These strategies may serve well to entrench existing attitudes, but they will not win debates.

In our engagement with those who adopt a pro-choice position, we must accept that they are not intrinsically acting from a sinister impulse but in good, albeit mistaken, faith (and, of course, they should then be expected to reciprocate that generosity of spirit).

It is right to protest against abortion as a matter of principle. It can help form the collective conscience and potentially persuade women to explore alternatives to terminating a pregnancy. But protest must be seen to be backed up by the language of the compassion and mercy of our Lord. It is that language which will reach pregnant women who are faced with difficult choices, not labelling them or issuing threats of excommunication.

Women who contemplate or have abortions should not be subjected to our judgment, but be treated with compassion. Archbishop Joseph Naumann, one of the Unites States� leading pro-life activists, points out in our report this week that he cannot think of any greater human suffering than that of the death of one�s child � �at whatever stage of life�. �Can there be any doubt,� he asked, �that mercy is really at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?�

As Christians, we are called to pray for all those souls � 233 a day in South Africa � who were denied the opportunity to taste life on earth, and for their mothers that they will receive God�s gift of healing, through our compassion and their repentance.