With election season in full swing, the topic of abortion is once again taking front stage in our news. As a resident of Louisiana, abortion is directly on our ballot with Amendment #1, commonly called the “Love Life Amendment.” As is typical of our society right now, there is a lot of misinformation about this amendment. Misinformation both about what the amendment will do, as well as actual Catholic Church teaching on the issue of abortion. I would like to focus on two issues: correcting the misunderstanding of Catholic Teaching and the actual impacts of the amendment itself.
Catholic Church Teaching
A common claim being made, both by pro-life catholics and pro-choice advocates, is that the Catholic Church teaches that there are exceptions to its abortion doctrine. These people say that the Church allows abortion in certain cases, like rape or health of the mother. Unfortunately, this is a grave misunderstanding of Catholic Social Teaching. Does this mean that the Church does not care about the mother and her situations? Not at all. The Catholic Church stands ready to defend the sanctity of all life, both of the mother and the child.
“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” 1 In other words, abortion is by its very nature morally evil, or intrinsically evil. It can never be used for any reason and it is morally wrong in all situations. The USCCB tells us that intrinsically evil acts “must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned” because “they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons.” 2 “One may not do evil so that good may result from it.” 3 So, to be clear, the Catholic Church does not allow for any exceptions to abortion, since abortion is an intrinsically evil act.
How then do we take care of women in difficult situations? This is where the Church’s teaching on the principle of double effect comes in. In short, double effect is a principle that states that sometimes “one must perform an action that is in itself morally good but may also have an unintended ill effect for which the person is not morally culpable.” 4 Acting to save the life of a woman in danger is morally good. We can and should perform actions that will save that woman. In cases where the woman is pregnant that action may result in the ill effect of losing the life of her child in the womb. This would be an unintended double effect and therefore the people involved are not morally responsible for that. However, the action taken to save the mother could never be an abortion, since that is never a morally good action.
For example, let’s look at a woman who is pregnant, but has uterine cancer. This is a very serious and potentially deadly situation for the mother. The only way to save her is to surgically remove her uterus. This action will have two effects: First, the safety and health of the mother is the desired effect. The second, the death of the child, is not desired. We can look at three principles to help us determine if this action is morally valid.
First, what is our intention? It is never a moral option to directly will an evil effect. If our desire is to abort or kill the child in the womb, that is unacceptable. In this case, the intention is not to perform an evil (abortion), but to perform the good of saving the life of the mother.
The second principle is the question of causality. Is the end (the health of the mother) achieved by an evil effect? St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “an evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention.” 5 In other words, the ends cannot justify the means. In our example, the means is not the direct killing of a child, but is an operation to remove a damaged, cancerous organ that is killing the mother.
Finally, we have to consider the comparable gravity of the effects. Is the good that is being achieved proportional or greater than the evil consequences, or the double effect? In our case, the doctor had to make a tragic, but moral choice to save the life of one patient, the mother, while unfortunately losing the other. Saving one person is better than allowing both of them to die because you don’t act, even if one of them passes away in the process.
We can take the three principles, intention, causality and gravity, from the above example and apply them to any other situation as well. The teaching is really quite simple. Directly killing an innocent life is a grave moral evil and is never acceptable. Since abortion is the direct killing of an innocent life, it follows that no exception for abortion is adequate. However, the Catholic Church has always protected the life of the mother as it recognizes, along with medical ethics, the principle of double effect.
Impacts of the Love Life Amendment
Some claim that the Love Life Amendment should not be passed due to the fact that it does not have any exceptions (health of mother, rape, etc) included in it. They say that without these exceptions, women would suffer in our state. As pointed out above, the Church teaches that abortion is never an option, or necessary, but I would like to also point out that this claim misrepresents the point of the Love Life Amendment.
This amendment does not put any restrictions on, or illegalize abortion. It simply ensures that no court or judge could circumvent Louisiana’s pro-life laws by finding a right to abortion in our state consititution. This would leave all decisions regarding any restrictions on abortion, or exceptions, up to the elected state congressman making the laws. It would not allow a judge to strike down any passed law by “finding” abortion rights in the Louisiana Constitution.
Unfortunately, this has happened across our county in 13 other states. Kansas, for example, found itself in this situation when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that their painful late-term abortion ban violated their constitution. They ruled this way even though the word abortion doesn’t exist in the Kansas Constitution anywhere.
We cannot allow this to happen in Louisiana. By passing this amendment, we will ensure that no judge can take it upon themselves to declare abortion or taxpayer funding of abortion as a guaranteed right from our Constitution. This will allow the legislature, our elected officials, to do their job and ensure the safety of women both born and unborn.
I think the sponsor of the bill, Katrina Jackson said it best: “Amendment 1 keeps abortion out of our state constitution, and keeps abortion policy in the hands of our legislators rather than state judges. Regardless of where you stand on abortion, I believe we can come together and support Amendment 1.”6
Conclusion
When considering the Love Life Amendment in Louisiana, or any other legislation where you may be, keep these teachings and principles in mind. The Catholic Church does not accept any exceptions for abortion, and we shouldn’t either.
May God bless you all as you continue to pray and discern about the election. My God also bless and protect the United States of America!