To the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women religious lay Faithful and all People of Good Will on the Value and Inviolabilityof Human Life (03/25/ 1995):
"In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to 'take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it'[98].
- Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Evangelium vitae, 1995)
The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Declaration on Procured Abortion (November 18, 1974 - one year following Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court):
. . . These debates would be less grave were it not a question of human life, a primordial value, which must be protected and promoted. Everyone understands this, although many look for reasons, even against all evidence, to promote the use of abortion. . . The Church is too conscious of the fact that it belongs to her vocation to defend man against everything that could disintegrate or lessen his dignity to remain silent on such a topic. Because the Son of God became man, there is no man who is not His brother in humanity . . .
22. It must in any case be clearly understood that whatever may be laid down by civil law in this matter, man can never obey a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity of abortion. Nor can he take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it. Moreover, he may not collaborate in its application.
. . . Christ's Church has the fundamental solicitude of protecting and favoring life. She certainly thinks before all else of the life which Christ came to bring: "I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full" (Jn. 10:10). But life at all its levels comes from God, and bodily life is for man the indispensable beginning."
[98] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (18 November 1974), No. 22: AAS 66 (1974), 744.
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