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Reproduced
below is a discussion of one of the issues included in the U.S. Catholic
Bishops’ Political Responsibility Statement.
Human life is
a gift from God which all of us are called to protect, nurture,
and sustain. The right to life, the most basic of all human rights,
must be protected by law. Abortion has become the fundamental human
rights issue of our day because it is the deliberate destruction
of a human being before birth.
The United States,
avowedly a defender of the weak, has one of the highest legal abortion
rates and the most extreme abortion policy of any industrialized
Western nation in the world. There are now more than 1.5 million
abortions every year in the United States, over 4,400 a day, with
well over 95 percent performed for economic or social reasons. Thousands
of unborn children are killed each year in the final months of pregnancy.
We support policies
and laws that encourage childbirth over abortion, and urge government
and the private sector to provide programs that assist pregnant
women and their children, especially those who are poor. We support
efforts to prohibit domestic and foreign abortion funding, as well
as efforts to protect states from having to fund abortions contrary
to their own laws. We reject the 1973 Supreme Court abortion decisions
which deny legal protection to unborn children, and we support efforts
to prohibit or restrict abortion legislatively and to provide constitutional
protection for unborn human life. Laws and policies on medical research,
health care, and related issues must respect and protect human life
from the moment of conception.
(Documentation
on the Right to Life and Abortion, 1974, 1976, 1981; Pastoral Plan
for Pro-Life Activities: A Reaffirmation, 1985; Resolution on Abortion,
1989, 1995; Faithful for Life: A Moral Reflection, 1995.)
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