Successive Popes, church councils and bishops in the Catholic Church have taught that abortion is indefensible since the unborn child is innocent of any offence and incapable of defending itself. The Catholic Church sees abortion as a mortal sin and has been against abortion and infanticide from the beginning. It feels that there are many other options open to expectant mothers. For example giving the child up for adoption or perhaps keeping the child once the mother has be through the trauma of pregnancy.
Again we see the Christian Church’s unity in the issue as the Presbyterian Church agrees with the Catholic Church when it once stated “the scriptures leave us no doubt that from the earliest days in the womb, the unborn child is fully a human, a person made in the image of God.” (from the leaflet on abortion)
However there are some mixed opinions in the Christian churches when it comes to extremely rare cases. These mixed opinions are seen when the Catholic Church accepts that in rare cases, certain measures aimed at solely curing medical conditions in an expectant mother may cause the death of the unborn child. The Catholic Church sees this type of abortion as an unavoidable and unintentional tragic event and continuously makes the point that “direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being is gravely immoral and abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.” (From gaudium et specs 51.3)
The Presbyterian Churches view of abortion is slightly different to that of the Catholic Church. Most Presbyterians believe that under no circumstances should a foetus be intentionally terminated no matter how rare the case is. The Presbyterian Church abides very closely to the commandment “thou shall not kill” and will make no exceptions to this law.
The Methodist Church is more lenient about the issue of abortion because they are able to justify the intentional killing of a foetus in a lot more instances. They except that abortion is reasonable in the following cases-:
- Grave risk to the to the mother’s physical or mental health
- When the pregnancy is a result of rape
- When they’re gross abnormalities of the foetus.
The Anglican Church is more or less in agreement with the Methodist Church.
We can clearly see that the Methodist Church and the Anglican Church understand that their congregation may have different views on the issue of abortion and are willing to except abortion in a lot more cases. Both the Anglican and Methodist church understand that human life is sacred but they also believe that the expectant mother has rights too and if her survival is crucial to care for her existing family then her rights get priority over the foetus in her womb.
The main challenges presented by the Christian Churches view on abortion, concern freedom of choice and matters of conscience. While a member of a Christian Church is aware of the teaching on abortion the pressure of personal circumstances can put a person in direct conflict with the views of the Church.
The main challenge for the pregnant woman is to appreciate that the child within her is created and exists. This means that irrespective of personal situations, the Christian Church expects anyone who is considering abortion to remember that the child within her womb has a right to life. This can be very challenging when a person’s life situation may have many complications.
For young people in particular there are social pressures and challenges when they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. They may feel that people will judge them; and it may cause strain between them and their own parents. Schooling and career prospects could be affected dramatically by the pregnancy. The challenge to the Christian Church is to help the young person to make a mature decision regardless of social pressure. The Christian Churches bottom line is that abortion is a form of killing and no one has the right to take another person’s life. This is the ultimate challenge to anyone considering abortion
In general we can say that all the Christian denominations are against abortion and all agree with the United Nations declaration that “the child, by reason of its physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before and after birth.”
