The Swiss Catholic Women’s Association (Schweizerische Katholische Frauenbund SKF) which has 120,000 members, has openly contradicted Pope Francis’ recent statement in his interview with Reuters on abortion in which he likened the practice to hiring an assassin to solve a problem. Already in September last year, on his return flight from Slovakia, Francis had underlined that abortion was “murder”.
“Abortion is not a crime”, the association declared on 5 July in Lucerne. The Pope’s “shocking comparison” that it was like hiring an assassin defamed women who had had an abortion. Women who decided in favour of an abortion were sufferers and not criminals, the SKF emphasised.
“These women are in a hopeless situation, urgently need help and admission to medically safe abortions. That is sad but not condemnable”, the statement underlined. Every woman who decides in favour of having an unplanned-for-baby despite the precarious situation in which she finds herself, but also every woman who has an abortion, “has a right to the support of society, to respect, accompaniment and care. That is a basic demand of Christian charity”, the statement recalled.
Meanwhile Members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday last week by 364 votes in favour, 154 against and 37 abstentions reminding the United States Supreme Court that it is “vital” to uphold the Roe v Wade (1973) case that protected the “right” to abortion. The MEPs urged US President Joe Biden and his administration to ensure access to safe and legal abortion. Bans and other restrictions on abortion disproportionately affect women in poverty, MEPs, said, claiming that women who, due to financial or logistical barriers, cannot afford to travel to abortion clinics in neighbouring states or countries, are at greater risk of undergoing unsafe and life-threatening procedures. During a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, ahead of the EU vote, the President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, reaffirmed the concerns of the Catholic Church for the way the issue of abortion is treated at the EU level. Cardinal Hollerich insisted that the attempt to see abortion as a fundamental right, “not only goes against the respect of the dignity of every human being, which is one of the pillars of the EU, but it will also gravely endanger the right to freedom of religion, of thought and conscience and the possibility of exercising conscientious objection.”
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