stalled Favre, vicar-general of Francis de Sales, as abbot.But these religious, isolated high up in the valley of theDrance, abandoned themselves in time to unhealthydistractions. Finally, Pope CLEMENT XIII ’s bull ofMay 9, 1761, granted King Charles-Emmanuel theright to suppress the Feuillants; another bull of May4, 1762, allotted the goods of Abondance, with the excep-tion of the benefices, to the Abbey of Sainte-Marieof Thonon. During the French Revolution the abbeywas sold. Today, the abbey church (14th and 17thcenturies), the cloister (14th century with frescoes),and the rich treasury are all classified as historicalmonuments. The church serves the needs of thelocal parish.

Bibliography: L. CIBRARIO, ed., Scriptorum, 3 v. (Monu-menta historiae patriae 3, 5, 11; Turin 1840–1863) 2:301–318, con-stitutions, 321–434, necrology. J. GARIN, Dictionnaire d’histoire etde géographie ecclésiastiques 1:144–153. L. H. COTTINEAU,Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés 1:9–10.

[J. DAOUST]

ABORTION

PRACTICE

Medically, abortion is defined as the termination ofpregnancy by any means before the fetus is sufficientlydeveloped to survive; it is divided into spontaneous(‘‘miscarriage’’) and induced. Dictionaries, encyclope-dias, and textbooks sometimes follow this definition.However, the practice of induced abortion requires a defi-nition that is properly descriptive of the moral reality. Inhis landmark encyclical The Gospel of Life (EvangeliumVitae) (1995), John Paul II, citing the need to ‘‘call thingsby their proper name,’’ defines abortion—he uses theterm ‘‘procured abortion’’—as ‘‘the deliberate and di-rect killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of ahuman being in the initial phase of his or her existence,extending from conception to birth’’ (58) (emphasis inoriginal). Approximately 15% of recognized pregnanciesend in spontaneous abortions. However, the topic of pro-cured abortion is part of an intense debate that John PaulII calls ‘‘an enormous and dramatic clash between goodand evil, death and life, the ‘culture of death’ and the‘culture of life’’’ (EV 28). At the conclusion of his classi-cal study on abortion, Connery notes that the trend in the19th century of eradicating abortion has now been re-versed and that ‘‘in our present society the frequency ofabortion is far greater than anything the Roman or ancientworld ever knew or dreamed of’’ (Connery, 313). Indeed,the practice of abortion is unprecedented not only interms of numbers but in term of methods and motiva-tions.

Procedures. The purpose of abortion is to producea dead child. Techniques for performing abortion are di-vided into surgical and what are called medical (involv-ing the use of chemicals).

In surgical abortions the unborn child is killed andremoved either through the woman’s cervix or, for somelate-term abortions, through the abdomen (hysterotomyor hysterectomy). The most common abortion techniquereported in the United States for 1997 was the surgicaltechnique of dilation of the woman’s cervix and curettage(D&C) (97.4% as reported to the Center for Disease Con-trol for 1997), including sharp curettage but mainly suc-tion curettage (vacuum aspiration). In suction curettage,the cervix is dilated, and a hollow curette tube is insertedthrough the cervix and into the uterus. Suction causes thebaby’s body to implode; the body parts are then suctionedthrough the tube. After 16 weeks, dilation and evacuation(D&E) is used. A variation on D&E is intact dilation andextraction (D&X or partial-birth abortion), used primari-ly at 20 to 24 weeks, but sometimes later, a technique inwhich the child is delivered feet-first all except for thehead, an instrument is forced into the base of the livingchild’s head, the brain is sucked out, and the delivery ofthe now-dead child is completed.

In medical abortions, various chemicals—such asoxytocin, saline or urea solutions, prostaglandins, mife-pristone (RU-486), misoprostal, or methotrexate—areused in various combinations to kill the unborn child and/or to induce premature labor. Certain contraceptive drugsand devices can also act as abortifacients by preventingimplantation of the newly conceived life. This also is oneof the principle effects of ‘‘morning-after pills,’’ highdoses of ordinary birth control pills taken a couple ofdays after intercourse.

Statistics. The number of illegal or clandestine abor-tions performed is by definition difficult to determine. Es-timates vary widely. Once abortion is made legal, theoverall incidence of abortion increases. In the UnitedStates, the incidence of legal abortion is tracked by theCenter for Disease Control (CDC) and by the Alan Gutt-macher Institute (AGI), founded by Planned Parenthood.CDC data are derived primarily from central health agen-cies and are considered incomplete. To overcome this de-ficiency, AGI sends questionnaires to all known abortionproviders. CDC reported 193,491 legal abortions in 1970.The number increased to a peak of 1,429,577 in 1990,then generally dropped throughout the 1990s to1,186,039 in 1997 (with a slight increase from 1995 to1996). AGI’s peak number, also in 1990, was 1,608,600,that number dropping in 1996 to 1,365,700 (also with aslight increase from 1995 to 1996). Especially since the1950s, laws regulating and restricting the practice of

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Cardinals standing in front of boxes of petitions during a pro-life rally on Capitol Hill. Left to right: Adam Maida, Detroit; RogerMahony, Los Angeles; Joseph Bernardin, Chicago; Anthony Bevelaqua, Philadelphia; Bernard Law, Boston; James Hickey,Washington; and William Keeler, Baltimore. (AP/Wide World Photos)

abortion have been overturned in many countries. AGIestimates that the number of legal abortions worldwidein 1995 could have been as high as 25.6 million.

Reasons for Abortion. CDC’s report on U.S. abor-tions for 1997 showed that women obtaining abortionswere more likely to be under 25 years of age (51.8%),white (58.4%), and unmarried (81%). Forty-eight percenthad repeat abortions. CDC or the AGI surveys do nottrack reasons for abortions. Specialized surveys indicatethat most abortions are elective. In one U.S. study,women on average gave 3.7 reasons for obtaining anabortion, with 76% choosing concern about how havinga baby could change their lives. Similar results are foundworldwide.

However, reasons for promoting the legalization ofabortion extend far beyond making life choices available.Major social forces consider abortion an essential part of

an effort to control population growth and size. Otherssee abortion as a tool to solve a wide variety of socialproblems, for example, poverty and crime. In these andother cases, the inherent dignity of the unborn child is ne-gated, reduced, or superceded for the sake of other val-ues.

CHURCH TEACHING

Each person is created in the image and likeness ofGod and is called to a personal relationship with God thatwill last forever. The life of each person is sacred andmust be respected absolutely from the moment of con-ception to natural death. No one can ever claim the rightto directly destroy an innocent human being for any rea-son. Direct abortion is gravely contrary to the moral law.With respect to care for the mother and her child, theChurch’s social teaching embraces a deep commitment

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Pro-life demonstrators marching in front of the White House, 1979.

to support for families, help for pregnant women in need,and healing after abortion.

Scripture. Neither the Old nor the New Testamentexplicitly addresses the question of procured abortion.This silence is not a sign of acceptance but of abhorrence.Life is a gift from God, who is the Lord of life and death.Shedding the blood of the innocent was forbidden (Gn9:4–6; Ex 20:13; Dt 5:17). In some texts it is suggestedthat God works within the womb (Jb 10:8–12, 31:15; Is44:24; Ps 139:13–15; 2 Mc 7:22–23) and that God hasa personal relationship with the unborn child (Is 49:1, 5;Jer 1:5). In the New Testament, the infancy narratives inparticular manifest great respect for fetal and infant life.

Early Church. Abortion was an accepted practicein the Greco-Roman culture. As the early Church movedinto this world, an explicit teaching in opposition to abor-tion developed. The Didache or Teaching of the TwelveApostles, an early book of Christian instruction with rootsin the Jewish community (dating perhaps from the 1stcentury AD), begins with a teaching on the two Ways ofLife and Death, and includes the admonition: ‘‘Thoushalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide’’(II.2). In the early centuries, the condemnation of abor-tion was unequivocal.

The first Church legislation prescribing penitentialdiscipline for abortion appears in the early 4th century,beginning a legal tradition that continues to this day. Thedistinction between the formed and unformed fetus, espe-cially with regard to the time of animation, entered intopatristic theological reflections. A primary influence inthis regard was the Septuagint (Greek) translation of atext in the Old Testament. One man in the course of fight-ing with another strikes a woman and causes a miscar-riage (Ex 21:22–25). In the Hebrew version, a fine islevied for the miscarriage, but the principle of ‘‘life forlife, eye for an eye’’ applies to any other injuries. TheGreek text introduces a distinction between the unformedand formed child, the penalty for destroying the formerbeing a fine, for the latter ‘‘life for life.’’ Here abortionof the formed fetus was homicide. Not all Church Fathersthought the distinction between the formed and unformedfetus was significant. Even for those who did, the time ofanimation was not seen as a dividing line determiningwhen abortion was permissible. Whether formed or un-formed, a new human life was under way and abortionwas rejected either as homicide or as anticipated homi-cide.

Transmission of the Tradition. In the Middle Ages,Aristotle’s biology, in which the male was formed at 40

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Abortion rights supporters march through Washington. (UPI/Corbis-Bettmann)

days, the female at 90 days, was reintroduced into theWest. The distinction between the formed and unformedfetus became a part of Church discipline, law, and theolo-gy, but the condemnation of abortion at any stage contin-ued. As Connery notes, ‘‘Even during the many centurieswhen Church penal and penitential practice was based onthe theory of delayed animation, the condemnation ofabortion was never affected by it’’ (Connery, 304). Thedistinction was used mainly for purposes of legal classifi-cation and the grading of penances.

Building on an unpublished work of John of Naples,Antoninus (1389–1459) for the first time introduced intotheology a discussion of abortion of the unanimated fetusto save the life of the mother. Theologians debated thismatter for the next three or four centuries. The issue be-came obsolete when the distinction between formed andunformed fetus was undercut by the findings of modernscience and the theory of delayed animation was dis-placed by that of immediate animation. Connery arguesthat a consensus of theologians regarding immediate ani-mation was reached in the second half of the 19th centu-ry. ‘‘This tended to make the whole question [lregardingabortion of the unanimated fetus] somewhat speculative’’(Connery, 223). In 1869, Pius IX removed the distinction

between animated and unanimated fetus as a basis forpenalties in Church law.

In the course of the modern debate, Antonius deCorduba (1485–1578) introduced a distinction betweenacceptable medical therapies that are immediately, direct-ly, and principally conducive to the health of the mother(de se salutifera) and unacceptable therapies that are im-mediately, directly, and principally conducive to thedeath of fetus (de se mortifera). Corduba’s distinctionmet with general acceptance and eventually becameknown as the distinction between direct and indirectabortion.

Modern Developments. In the second half of the19th century, an extended debate arose among theolo-gians over craniotomy (collapsing the skull of the childto complete delivery) and medical abortion to save themother’s life. Those in favor argued that the fetus in thesecircumstances was an unjust aggressor, even if only in amaterial sense. The intention was to save the mother’slife, while the death of the fetus was accidental and unin-tentional. Through decrees in 1884, 1889, and finally1895 (DS 3258, 3298), the Holy Office rejected cranioto-my and medical abortion. It stated that it cannot be taughtthat craniotomy is licit, and that the same applies to any

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Human embryo. (© Science Pictures Limited/CORBIS)

medical procedure directly lethal either to the fetus or tothe mother. After devoting four chapters of his book tothese controversies, Connery concluded: ‘‘It may be dif-ficult in many cases to know where to draw the line be-tween accidental and deliberate killing, but churchauthorities apparently felt that these theologians [arguingfor the procedures] had gone over the line’’ (Connery,312).

After the issuance of the encyclical Casti connubiiby Pius XI (1930), in which abortions for the mother’slife or health were addressed at some length, a discussiondeveloped among theologians on the application of thedistinction between direct and indirect abortion to thecase of the removal of the cancerous uterus of a pregnantwoman. Theologians generally came to accept the posi-tion that it was legitimate directly to remove the cancer-ous uterus to save the mother’s life, with the indirecteffect that the child may die.

In 1898 and 1902, the Holy Office responded toquestions about ectopic pregnancies (DS 3338, 3358). Itrecognized the general permissibility of a laparotomy, aslong as serious provision was made for the life of boththe fetus and the mother, but it objected to the direct re-moval of the nonviable fetus. In a work published in1933, T. Lincoln Bouscaren applied the distinction be-

tween direct and indirect abortion to ectopic pregnancies.He argued that a pathological tube could be directly re-moved to save the mother’s life, with the indirect effectthat the child may die. His position was generally accept-ed by theologians.

In his Oct. 25, 1951 ‘‘Allocution to Midwives,’’ PiusXII affirmed that every human being, even the child inthe womb, has the right to life directly from God. Thereis no justification for the direct, deliberate disposal of aninnocent human life, whether as an end in itself or as ameans. In a Nov. 26, 1951 ‘‘Address to the Family FrontCongress,’’ Pius XII again affirmed that innocent humanlife from the first moment of its existence is to be pre-served from any direct voluntary attack. He further statedthat this principle applies to mother and child; everymeans must be used to save the life of both. The Holy Fa-ther explicitly adopts the distinction between direct andindirect abortion. He notes that he is careful in the use ofthe expression ‘‘direct killing.’’

The reason is that if, for example, the safety of thelife of the future mother, independently of herstate of pregnancy, might call for an urgent surgi-cal operation, or any other therapeutic application,which would have as an accessory consequence,in no way desired nor intended, but inevitable, thedeath of the fetus, such an act could not be calleda direct attempt on the innocent life. In these con-ditions, the operation can be lawful, as can othersimilar medical interventions, provided that it bea matter of great importance, such as life, and thatit is not possible to postpone it until the birth ofthe child, or to have recourse to any other effica-cious remedy.

Vatican II to the Present. In its ‘‘Pastoral Constitu-tion on the Church in the Modern World,’’ the SecondVatican Council summed up the Church’s teaching tradi-tion on abortion: ‘‘God, the Lord of life, has entrusted tomen the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men mustcarry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life mustbe protected with the utmost care from the moment ofconception: abortion and infanticide are abominablecrimes’’ (51). Thirty years later, John Paul II authorita-tively set forth the teaching that the direct and voluntarykilling of an innocent human being is always gravely im-moral (EV 57) and then with an equal invocation of au-thority he applied this teaching to abortion:

Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferredupon Peter and his Successors, in communionwith the Bishops . . . I declare that direct abor-tion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as ameans, always constitutes a grave moral disorder,since it is the deliberate killing of an innocenthuman being. This doctrine is based upon the nat-ural law and upon the written Word of God, is

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transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taughtby the ordinary and universal Magisterium (EV62) (emphasis in original).

The worldwide practice and promotion of abortionon a scale unheard of in the history of human societyprompted this unprecedented formulation of the Church’steaching. Just as the Church at the end of the 19th centurycould not be silent about the working classes who wereoppressed in their fundamental rights, so today, ‘‘whenanother category of persons is being oppressed in the fun-damental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound tospeak out with the same courage on behalf of those whohave no voice’’ (EV 5).

SPECIAL QUESTIONS

In the process of human generation, God creates anddirectly infuses the immaterial and eternal soul. TheMagisterium has not definitively resolved the issue ofwhen the soul is infused. However, today, as in the past,all direct abortion from fertilization forward is rejected.In The Gospel of Life, John Paul II sets forth two basicarguments. First, a new human individual begins at fertil-ization: ‘‘a life is begun which is neither that of the fathernor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human beingwith his own growth. It would never be made human ifit were not human already. . . . Right from fertilizationthe adventure of a human life begins, and each of its ca-pacities requires time, a rather lengthy time to find itsplace and to be in a position to act’’ (EV 60, quoting theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ‘‘Declarationon Procured Abortion’’ [1974]). John Paul II takes as hisown the rhetorical question asked in the CDF’s instruc-tion Donum vitae, ‘‘How could a human individual notbe a human person?’’ Second, when human life is atissue, the safer course is required: ‘‘The mere probabilitythat a human person is involved would suffice to justifyan absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimedat killing a human embryo.’’ The Holy Father continues:‘‘Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientificdebates and those philosophical affirmations to which theMagisterium has not expressly committed itself, theChurch has always taught and continues to teach that theresult of human procreation, from the first moment of itsexistence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respectwhich is morally due to the human being in his or her to-tality and unity as body and spirit’’ (EV 60).

In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas was a propo-nent of delayed animation. According to his biologicaltheory, out of excess nourishment, the male producessemen, which serves as an active instrumental cause ofthe generative power of the father’s soul, the elements,and the heavens (responsible for the species of the onegenerated). Also out of excess nourishment, the female

produces menstrual blood, a passive material. At concep-tion, the semen begins acting on the menstrual blood;through a series of many generations and corruptions, anew life is generated, at first vegetative, then animal, andfinally, when the body is sufficiently organized, intellec-tual. With respect to the completion of the generative pro-cess, the parents only dispose the matter, while Goddirectly creates the form. In the Summa Theologiae,Thomas espouses the classic Aristotelian view that oncegeneration is complete, the semen dissolves. ‘‘The move-ment of an instrument ceases when the effect has beenproduced in being’’ (Summa Theologiae I, q. 118, a. 1,ad 4).

As noted earlier, with the establishment of the celltheory, the discovery of the female ovum, and a properunderstanding of the male sperm and fertilization, thetheory of immediate animation became generally accept-ed. The essential generative act takes place at fertiliza-tion. What happens thereafter is self-directeddevelopment and growth. From the single-celled zygotestage, the new life is an organized, complex, unique,human, individual person. The new life is not a potentialhuman being but a human being with active potential togrow and develop in accord with the life cycle proper tothe human person.

Those who seek to maintain the general theory of de-layed hominization—the commonly used term today fordelayed animation—in the context of the new biologyhave difficulties in explaining how a lower form of lifeis transformed into a higher. If the male semen is not thecause of the ever-evolving generative process, then a newefficient cause must be found. The most economical argu-ment places the nucleus of the zygote as the efficientcause of the developmental process. Ashley andO’Rourke point out that for Aristotle the presence of ahighly organized body is dependent on the appearance ofa ‘‘primary organ’’ (which for him was the heart) throughwhich the soul activated the organism. But today weknow that ‘‘a sequence of primordial centers of organiza-tion in the embryo goes back continuously to the nucleusof the zygote, long before the brain appears as the finalcenter’’ (Ashley and O’Rourke, 236). Only the minimalstructure necessary for the active potentiality of self-development is required for an organism to be an actualhuman person.

Not all who favor some form of delayed hominiza-tion adopt the traditional general theory. Some argue thatthe new human life in its earliest days and even weeksis genetically human but is not a single unified individual.However, a careful look at what is known biologicallysheds new light on early human development and castsaside the suggestion that in the early stages the cells ofthe new life are just an aggregate.

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Serra and Columbo argue that the new genome, es-tablished at fertilization, is the basis of the structural andfunctional unity of the embryo developing in a constantdirection. In fact, the regulation of the process of devel-opment is the result of the hierarchically ordered activityof three main classes of genes: the ‘‘coordinate,’’ the‘‘selector,’’ and the ‘‘realizator’’ genes. After reviewingthe biological data, Serra and Columbo conclude:‘‘[A]part from fortuitous disturbances, at the fusion oftwo gametes, a new real human individual initiates itsown existence, or life cycle, during which—given all thenecessary and sufficient conditions—it will autonomous-ly realize all the potentialities with which he is intrinsical-ly endowed’’ (165).

Johnson examined the arguments that claim irrevers-ible individuality does not occur at fertilization but per-haps 14 or so days later. He reduces the cases giving riseto this view to three: that of the hydatidiform mole, therole of the maternal contribution to human development,and the question of totipotentiality (including the issue oftwinning). In the case of hydatidiform moles, no organ-ism is actually present or the organism is profoundly de-fective and doomed to die. With respect to the maternalrole in the developing new life, Johnson argues that anygenetic information received from the mother would besubordinate to the dominant role played by the zygote’sown directive structures. The most important of thesethree cases is that of totipotentiality. The cells of the earlyembryo, perhaps up to when the primitive streak appears,possess an ability to become separate organisms, as oc-curs in the case of monozygotic twinning (with the sub-case the possibility that the twins subsequentlyrecombine). Thus, some argue, until twinning is no lon-ger possible, the new life is a genetic but not a develop-mental individual. Johnson observes that separated earlycells can develop as new individuals (a form of asexualreproduction) but that excessive focus on this ‘‘plastic’’character can give rise to the idea that the early cellswhen part of the developing new life have no more thanan incidental unity. An examination of the cells as partof the early embryo shows complex ordering, communi-cation, and regulation one in relation to the other. He sug-gests that ‘‘potentially totipotential’’ would be a betterterm for the cells that are a part of the developing newlife. Serra and Colombo make a similar point when theystate that the totipotency present in the zygote does notmean indeterminancy, but an actual capacity for execut-ing a plan according to a given program. Twinning occurswhen cells accidentally break off (due, for example, to anerror in cell division) and is the exception to the rule.Johnson argues that the claims for delayed hominizationthat he has examined cannot be used as grounds to justifyany proposed action.

CONCLUSION

On many occasions, John Paul II has addressed thequestion of abortion. In his Oct. 7, 1979 homily on theMall in Washington, D.C., he poignantly summed up theChurch’s teaching: ‘‘I do not hesitate to proclaim beforeyou and before the world that all human life—from themoment of conception and through all subsequentstages—is sacred, because human life is created in theimage and likeness of God. . . . Human life is preciousbecause it is the gift of a God whose love is infinite; andwhen God gives life, it is forever.’’

Bibliography: ‘‘Law and the Incidence of Abortion,’’ Docu-mentation on Abortion and the Right to Life II (Washington, DC1976), 5–11. A. TORRES and J. D. FORREST, ‘‘Why Do Women HaveAbortions?’’ Family Planning Perspectives 20 (1988) 69–76. F. G.

CUNNINGHAM, et al., eds., Williams Obstetrics: 20th Edition (Stam-ford, Conn. 1997). K. L. MOORE and T. V. N. PERSAUD, Before WeAre Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects, 5th ed.(Philadelphia 1998). S. K. HENSHAW, ‘‘Abortion Incidence and Ser-vices in the United States, 1995–1996,’’ Family Planning Perspec-tives 30 (1998) 263–70, 287; Sharing Responsibility: Women,Society, and Abortion Worldwide (New York 1999); ‘‘AbortionSurveillance United States, 1997,’’ Morbidity and Mortality Week-ly Report: CDC Surveillance Summaries 40 (Dec. 8, 2000). Con-gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ‘‘Declaration on ProcuredAbortion,’’ (1974); ‘‘Instructions on Respect for Human Life in ItsOrigins and on the Dignity of Procreation,’’ (1987). Catechism ofthe Catholic Church 2258, 2270–75, 2319, 2322–23. JOHN PAUL II,The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) (1995). ‘‘The Didache, orTeaching of the Twelve Apostles,’’ The Apostolic Fathers, v. 1, tr.K. LAKE (Cambridge, Mass. 1965). U.S. Catholic Bishops, PastoralPlan for Pro-Life Activities: A Reaffirmation (1985); Faithful forLife: A Moral Reflection (1995); Living the Gospel of Life (1998).J. T. NOONAN, JR., ‘‘An Almost Absolute Value in History,’’ in TheMorality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives (Cam-bridge, Mass. 1970), 1–59. G. GRISEZ, Abortion: The Myths, the Re-alities, and the Arguments (New York 1970); The Way of the LordJesus, v. 2: Living a Christian Life (Quincy, Ill. 1993). B. ASHLEY,‘‘A Critique of the Theory of Delayed Hominization,’’ in An Ethi-cal Evaluation of Fetal Experimentation: An InterdisciplinaryStudy, ed. D. G. MCCARTHY and A. S. MORACZEWSKI (St. Louis, Mo.1976), 113–33. B. ASHLEY and K. D. O’ROURKE, Health Care Ethics:A Theological Analysis, 4th ed. (Washington, DC 1997). J. CON-

NERY, Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspec-tive (Chicago, Ill. 1977). S. J. HEANEY, ed., Abortion: A NewGeneration of Catholic Responses (Braintree, Mass. 1992). M.

JOHNSON, ‘‘Delayed Hominization,’’ Theological Studies 56(1995) 743–63. P. LEE, Abortion and Unborn Human Life (Wash-ington, DC 1996). T. J. O’DONNELL, Medicine and Christian Morali-ty, 3d ed. (Staten Island, N.Y. 1996). I. C. DE PAULA, ‘‘The RespectDue to the Human Embryo: A Historical and Doctrinal Perspec-tive,’’ in Identity and Statute of Human Embryo: Proceedings ofThird Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, ed. J. DE DIOS

VIAL CORREA and E. SGRECCIA (Vatican City 1998), 48–73. A.

SERRA and R. COLOMBO, ‘‘Identity and Status of the Human Em-bryo: The Contribution of Biology,’’ in ibid., 128–77. W. E. MAY,Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life (Huntington, Ind.2000). J. DONCEEL, ‘‘Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominiza-tion,’’ Theological Studies 31 (1970) 76–105. N. FORD, When DidI Begin? Conception of the Human Individual in History, Philoso-phy, and Science (Cambridge, Eng. 1988). T. A. SHANNON and A. B.

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WOLTER, ‘‘Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-Embryo,’’Theological Studies 51 (1990) 603–26.

[M. A. TAYLOR]

ABORTION (CANON LAW)

The Catholic Church has long considered abortion tobe not only a grave moral evil but also a crime punishableby canonical sanctions. Any Latin Catholic who success-fully procures an abortion incurs an ‘‘automatic’’ (lataesententiae) excommunication (Codex iuris canonici c.1398). A major excommunication can be imposed on anEastern Catholic who procures an abortion. An Easterncleric can be subjected to additional penalties, includingdeposition from the clerical state (Corpus canonum ec-clesiarum orientalium c. 1450.2). One who procures orpositively cooperates in the procuration of an abortion isirregular or permanently impeded from the reception oforders and the exercise of orders already received (CICcc. 1041.4, 1044.3; CCEO cc. 762–763).

The traditional canonical understanding of ‘‘abor-tion’’ was that it consisted in the intentional and culpable

Pope John Paul II visits grave of Jerome Lejeune, an ardent abortion opponent and leader of Pontifical Academy for Life, anorganization with close ties to the Vatican, Chalo-Saint-Mars cemetery outside Paris, August 1997. (AP/Wide World Photos)

expulsion from the uterus of a living, non-viable fetus.Interpreting the text narrowly, most (but not all) canonistsheld that the canonical penalty for abortion was not in-curred by those who killed a viable fetus in utero or al-lowed such a fetus to die after causing its expulsion fromthe uterus. In 1988, the Pontifical Council for the Inter-pretation of Legal Texts authoritatively construed theterm ‘‘abortion’’ to mean the intentional and culpablekilling of a fetus ‘‘in whatever way or whatever timefrom the moment of conception it may be procured.’’Thus, penalties for abortion can now be incurred or im-posed even for the destruction of a viable fetus.

The current Codes omit the 1917 Code’s explicit ref-erence to the mother as one who incurs the censure forabortion. The explicit mention of the mother in the 1917Code was intended to resolve a controversy among pre-Code authors. Since the 1917 Code definitively resolvedthis dispute, mention of the mother in the revised Codewas seen as superfluous.

The latae sententiae excommunication threatened bythe Latin Code for procuration of abortion is often re-ferred to as an ‘‘automatic’’ penalty. It should be noted,however, that only Latin-rite Catholics who have com-

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pleted their eighteenth year can incur latae sententiaepenalties. Any legally recognized factor that eliminatesor diminishes culpability for an offense also relieves oneof the burden of an ‘‘automatic’’ penalty for that offense(CIC c. 1324.3).

The revised Latin Code subjects to the latae senten-tiae penalty of excommunication only those cooperatorsin an abortion whose cooperation was necessary for thecommission of the offense. In other words, only thosewithout whose efforts a particular abortion would nothave occurred incur the ‘‘automatic’’ penalty of excom-munication (CIC c. 1329.2). Penalties can be imposed onother cooperators in accord with the gravity of their com-plicity in a ‘‘common conspiracy’’ (CIC c. 1329.1;CCEO c. 1417). One need not be a necessary cooperatorto become irregular for the reception or exercise of or-ders. Culpable positive cooperation suffices.

Remission of censures incurred or imposed for abor-tion is reserved in the Latin Church (CIC c. 1355) to ordi-naries in normal circumstances and in the EasternChurches (CCEO c. 1420.1) to hierarchs. When a peni-tent of the Latin Church is in danger of death, any priest,even one lacking the faculty to hear confessions, validlyabsolves from the censure in the act of sacramental con-fession (CIC c. 976). For the faithful of Eastern Church-es, penalties forbidding the reception of the sacramentsare suspended when the guilty party is in danger of death(CCEO c. 1435.1) and any priest can then absolve fromthe sin of abortion that prompted the penalty (CCEO c.725).

In the Latin Church, as long as the latae sententiaecensure for abortion has not been declared, all bishops(CIC c. 1355.2), canons penitentiary, those appointed tofulfill that role in dioceses that do not have cathedralchapters (CIC c. 508), and chaplains in prisons, hospitals,and ocean liners (CIC c. 566.2) may remit the censure inthe sacramental forum. In hardship situations, ordinaryconfessors can temporarily remit the censure, but the pen-itent reincurs the censure unless he or she makes recourseto one with authority to remit the censure within thirtydays (CIC c. 1357). Confessors can be given habitual fac-ulties to absolve unconditionally from this censure in sac-ramental confession.

Bibliography: T. GREEN, ‘‘Sanction in the Church (c.1311–1399),’’ in J. CORIDEN et al., eds., The Code of Canon Law:A Text and Commentary (New York 1985) 891–942. M. GLENDON,Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (Cambridge 1987). R. SAG-

MEISTER, ‘‘Das neue kirchliche Strafrecht und der Schutz des Le-bens,’’ in K. LUDICKE et al., eds., Recht im Dienste des Menschen(Graz 1986) 493–516. L. WRENN, Authentic Interpretation on the1983 Code (Washington 1993) 48–49.

[J. P. BEAL]

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The United States has been making laws about abor-tion since the 19th century. From the middle to latter dec-ades of that century, distinctions between abortionspreformed before and after ‘‘quickening’’ passed away,and the vast majority of states penalized most abortions,as well as the advertising of abortion services and infor-mation. While doctors were generally subject to criminalpenalties for performing abortions, few states imposedsuch penalties on the women who sought them.

Beginning in the 1960s, several states enacted lawsthat permitted abortion in particular circumstances suchas rape and incest, and in cases in which a doctor con-cluded that a pregnancy posed a danger to the mother’slife or health. Some states also allowed abortions duringapproximately the first trimester of pregnancy. In re-sponse, a rapidly developing pro-life movement sup-ported referenda and legislation to reverse permissiveabortion laws. These pro-life campaigns were largelysuccessful during the late 1960s and the early years of the1970s.

The Legalization of Abortion. This democraticprocess at the state level was largely halted in 1973 withthe United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v.Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton. In thesecases, the Supreme Court announced that there could befound in the U.S. Constitution a right of ‘‘privacy’’ broadenough to encompass a woman’s decision to terminateher pregnancy by abortion; unborn human lives were not‘‘persons’’ entitled to protection under the FourteenthAmendment. Furthermore, states could not pass abortionlaws shielding unborn life from abortion to a degreegreater than the federal constitution without runningafoul of women’s federal constitutional right to chooseabortion.

The Roe Court established standards for state regula-tion of abortion with reference to the three trimesters ofpregnancy. On the surface, it appeared that these stan-dards allowed states to restrict abortion to a greater de-gree as a pregnancy progressed. In effect, however, theCourt’s standards prohibited states from banning anyabortion throughout pregnancy. Even in the last trimester,states could not forbid any abortion if an abortion provid-er would state that it was necessary for a woman’s‘‘health.’’ The Doe decision defined ‘‘health’’ in theabortion context very expansively to include ‘‘all fac-tors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, andthe woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the pa-tient.’’

After Roe v. Wade. In response to Roe, a movementarose in the 1970s to add a ‘‘human life amendment’’ to

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‘‘March for Life’’ Demonstration, Washington D.C., 1975. (AP/Wide World Photos)

the federal constitution. Two leading versions of thisamendment were proposed. The first would declare theunborn human life a constitutional ‘‘person’’ entitled tothe Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of life. A secondwould allow all states, if they wished, to pass laws pro-tecting the lives of the unborn as they had before Roe.While there arose significant momentum for such anamendment over the course of the 1970s and early 1980s,no such amendment has yet passed. The passage of ahuman life amendment remains an ultimate goal of thepro-life movement.

Also in response to Roe, state legislatures passed agreat number and variety of laws intended either to re-strict legal abortion based on the mother’s reasons forseeking abortion or on the length of her pregnancy, or toregulate (usually limit) the conditions under which abor-tion could take place. Abortion advocates regularly chal-lenged these laws in federal court; as a result, manyabortion law cases were appealed to and ultimately decid-

ed by the United States Supreme Court. During the 1970sand 1980s, the Supreme Court most often interpreted theprivacy right announced in Roe quite expansively, and in-validated state laws regulating or restricting abortion.From 1976 to 1986, for example, the court held: that ahusband’s interests in his unborn child are not greaterthan a wife’s right to seek an abortion (Planned Parent-hood v. Danforth); that parents have only a limited rightto direct their minor daughters’ abortion decisions, whichright can be assumed by a judge (Bellotti v. Baird); thatsafety regulations may not be imposed upon abortionclinics if compliance would create significant financialobstacles to women seeking abortions (Akron v. AkronCenter for Reproductive Health); and that abortionistsmay not be directed to use the post-viability abortionmethod most likely to result in a live child (Colautti v.Franklin).

The judicial trend to render the abortion right virtual-ly absolute peaked in the decision of Thornburgh v.

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Pro-life demonstrators from Operation Rescue, Buffalo, NewYork, 1992. (AP/Wide World Photos)

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Inthis case, the Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvanialaw requiring abortionists to obtain a woman’s informedconsent prior to performing an abortion. Dissenting fromthe majority opinion, Roe supporter Justice Warren Bur-ger wrote: ‘‘We have apparently already passed the pointat which abortion is available merely on demand. If thestatute at issue here is to be invalidated, the ‘demand’ willnot even have to be the result of an informed choice.’’

Roe v. Wade Questioned. In 1989, the tone of Su-preme Court abortion jurisprudence changed somewhatin Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. In this case,while the Court explicitly refused to reconsider Roe, amajority of justices held that the right to choose an abor-tion should be demoted from the status of a ‘‘fundamen-tal’’ constitutional right to that of a ‘‘liberty interest.’’The Court upheld Missouri laws that: (a) permitted theuse of state resources for childbirth, but not for abortion;(b) mandated viability testing at 20 weeks’ gestation andlater prior to the performance of an abortion; (c) directedthat all state laws should be interpreted to protect unbornchildren, subject to existing constitutional and case lawprecedents.

After Webster, two cases clarified the law concern-ing parental involvement in minors’ abortions. In Hodg-

son v. Minnesota and Ohio v. Akron Center forReproductive Health, the Supreme Court held that one orboth parents could legally be required to receive notifica-tion of an unmarried minor’s abortion decision if thedaughter was provided the opportunity of a ‘‘judicial by-pass,’’ i.e. appealing to a judge to go forward with theabortion without parental notification.

It was widely expected that the Supreme Courtwould continue to weaken Roe with its decision inPlanned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. The opposite oc-curred. In a plurality opinion authored by the appointeesof two anti-abortion presidents, George Bush, Sr., andRonald Reagan, Roe was reaffirmed, albeit with abimester (versus a trimester) scheme for reviewing stateabortion laws. After viability, the old standard wouldapply: abortions declared to be for a woman’s ‘‘life orhealth’’ could not be restricted. Pre-viability, abortionlaws would be judged according to a new standard:whether or not they imposed an ‘‘undue burden’’ or‘‘substantial obstacle’’ to any woman’s obtaining anyabortion. This standard was attacked by the dissenters inCasey as one subject to wildly varying and subjective in-terpretations.

The plurality opinion in Casey was silent regardingwhether Roe had been rightly decided. It opined, instead,that abortion had become necessary for women to plantheir lives in the event their birth control should fail. TheCourt also indicated that it believed that its authoritywould be undermined by a reversal of Roe.

Partial Birth Abortion. The movement to ban apractice known as ‘‘partial-birth abortion’’ began a newchapter in the legal and political struggle over abortionin the United States. In the early 1990s, pro-life advocateslearned of the development of a new method for terminat-ing the lives of partially-born children. In a paper deliv-ered at an annual meeting of the National AbortionFederation (a trade association for abortionists and abor-tion clinics), abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell of Ohio de-scribed a procedure he had helped develop called‘‘Dilation and Extraction.’’ Used on unborn human livesfrom approximately 16 to 32 weeks gestation, the proce-dure involved: (1) dilating a pregnant mother’s cervixover several days; (2) forcibly converting the body of theliving unborn child to a breech position in the womb; (3)with forceps, grabbing a leg of the child and dragging itsentire body up to the base of the neck outside the moth-er’s body; (4) stabbing the child with a pair of scissorsat the base of the brain; (5) with a suction device, evacu-ating the contents of the skull; (6) crushing the skull andremoving the entire body from the mother.

Pro-life groups disseminated information about thisprocedure widely to the public, the media, and to Con-

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gress. In 1995, legislation was introduced in Congress toban this procedure; it was entitled the ‘‘Partial-BirthAbortion Ban Act.’’ The bill commanded support frommany self-described ‘‘pro-choice’’ members of Con-gress. It also had bi-partisan support. Public opinion pollsshowed up to 70 percent of American citizens favoringpassage of the bill, including a majority of self-described‘‘pro-choice’’ men and women. Still, after several at-tempts, the bill did not become law; it was twice vetoedby President William Clinton. While the House of Repre-sentatives easily overrode such vetoes, the Senate re-mained a few votes short of the number needed for anoverride.

While the federal Congress deliberated, however, 30states passed legislation banning partial-birth abortion.These laws were immediately challenged by abortion ad-vocates, and in 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court granted cer-tiorari to hear the dispute over the partial-birth ban passedby the legislature of Nebraska. The Court’s opinion inthat case, Stenberg v. Carhart, in the eyes of many veter-an legal analysts, marks a return to the days when theconstitutional abortion right was interpreted so broadlythat it swallowed all attempts at regulation. In Stenberg,writing for the 5–4 majority, Justice Breyer stated thatNebraska’s law failed the Casey test; the law placed anundue burden on women’s right to abortion because itcould be interpreted to ban the most common form of sec-ond trimester abortions, the dismemberment or ‘‘Dilationand Evacuation’’ method. He also wrote that—despitethe lack of empirical scientific evidence on the medicalnecessity for partial-birth abortion—the state was re-quired to make a ‘‘health exception’’ to the ban in theevent that any abortionist might decide that this proce-dure would be marginally better for any woman seekingan abortion.

The majority’s opinion provoked blistering dissentsfrom Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Thomas,

Scalia, and Kennedy. Justice Scalia compared Stenbergwith the Supreme Court decisions allowing slavery (DredScott) and the internment of Japanese American citizensduring World War II (Korematsu). Justice Kennedy, amember of the Casey plurality, argued that the Court hadturned its back on Casey’s invitation to accord greaterweight to states’ interests in unborn life. In emotional lan-guage, he described partial-birth abortion and argued forNebraska’s right to declare such a procedure a threat torespect for all human life and to the future of the medicalprofession.

Despite the Stenberg decision, the struggle over par-tial-birth abortion altered the legal and political landscapein ways fundamentally harmful to abortion advocates inthe United States. Public opinion polls taken in the late1990s showed pro-life support even with support forlegal abortion for the first time since the early 1970s.During the federal congressional debate over partial-birthabortion, abortion advocacy groups, for the first time indecades, were forced to answer hard questions in themedia. False statements made repeatedly by abortion ad-vocates were exposed by reporters and in congressionalhearings broadcast live on C-SPAN. While the fate ofstate and federal bans on partial-birth abortions is not yetdecided and the Stenberg opinion was a major legal blowto the pro-life movement, the campaign to ban partial-birth abortion advanced the credibility of the pro-lifemovement in ways that will be felt for years.

Bibliography: The texts of all United States Supreme Courtdecisions can be found in the official U.S. Supreme Court reports.The legal, political, and social history of abortion in the UnitedStates during the nineteenth century can be found in M. GROSSBERG,Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth–CenturyAmerica (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1985). Abortion law and practice fromthe nineteenth century to today is found in M. OLASKY, AbortionRites: A Social History of Abortion in America (Wheaton, Ill.1992).

[H. M. ALVARE]

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