English Version
Massachusetts
Governor Healey Grants a “License to Kill”
On
August 10, 2026, Governor Maura Healey signed An Act Prioritizing Patient
Access to Care. The law simply provides that, after 24 weeks, an abortion
may be performed by a physician. It establishes no new upper gestational limit.
The legislature itself described the measure as removing restrictions on
abortion. In short, the life of the child may be ended right up until the day
of birth.
When
a pregnancy is wanted, almost everyone instinctively speaks of “the baby.” People look at ultrasound
images, count fingers and toes, discuss names, and try to protect the child’s life. When exactly the same biologically developing human
being is unwanted, however, the language can suddenly become detached: “pregnancy tissue,” “product of
conception,” or simply “fetus.” Some of these terms are medically
correct in their proper context, but morally speaking, words can also function
as a form of abstraction. A fetus, after all, is not a different kind of being
from a baby; “fetus”
describes a stage of development of one and the same human being, just as “newborn,” “toddler,” and “adolescent” do. A man of eighty is the same person he was at
twenty-five, the same person he was when he first learned to ride a bicycle,
and the same person he was when he was still in his mother’s womb.
There
is no moment between conception, birth, and adulthood at which the living
organism is first something non-human and then suddenly becomes human. From
fertilization onward, there exists a new, living human organism with its own
genetic identity which, unless it is killed or lost through disease, continues
to develop from within. It differs from a newborn in size, development,
dependence, and location, but not in the fundamental fact that it is the same
living individual.
This
also explains why, according to Catholic morality, “being wanted” cannot be a criterion for the right to life.
A three-month-old baby may be completely dependent on others and may place a
heavy burden on his parents. Yet no one would conclude from this that he may
therefore be killed. The moral principle is precisely the opposite: the more
helpless a person is, the greater our duty to protect him.
Here
the comparison with a child who has already been born touches upon an important
point. Birth is biologically and socially of enormous significance, but it does
not suddenly change the identity of the one being born. Five minutes before
birth and five minutes afterward, we are not dealing with two different beings.
The child changes location and manner of breathing, but not human species or
personal continuity. The law itself inadvertently confirms this: killing a
child shortly after birth is regarded as murder, whereas killing that same
child very shortly beforehand is permitted. Yet it really is the same child.
When
the fundamental value of a human being is made dependent upon the wishes of the
mother, or upon particular characteristics—independence, consciousness, health,
usefulness, being wanted—it becomes difficult to explain in principle why those
same criteria could not also be applied to newborns, the severely disabled,
people with dementia, or the dying. And this is precisely why the language of “wanted” and “unwanted” is so problematic. A human being may be
unplanned. He may arrive at an inconvenient time. Tragically, he may even
appear to be wanted by no one. But from a Catholic perspective, a human being
can never become unworthy of life simply because someone else does not want
him. If birth becomes the criterion determining whether killing constitutes
murder, one must be able to explain what moral transformation occurs during
those few inches through the birth canal.
Consider
twins. One child is born on Monday at 10:00 a.m. The other is still in the womb
at 9:00 a.m. on Monday and could be born later that same morning. There is no
event between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. by which one being suddenly acquires human
dignity. The child passes from the womb into the light of day. He changes
location and physiological condition, not his nature. At every stage of life,
it is the same person.
In
France, abortion has now been enshrined as a constitutional right. In the
Netherlands, D66—“Death 66,” one might say—explicitly advocates the same in its
election manifesto. At the European level, the European Parliament took the
same turn in April 2024, adopting a resolution calling for the “right to safe and legal abortion” to
be added to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. A right to
dispose of another person’s life: it is usually barbaric regimes
that regard such a thing as normal.
It
is bizarre to seek to enshrine abortion as a fundamental right. A constitution
ought to protect the most fundamental rights of the human person, first and
foremost the right to life. Yet it would then simultaneously protect a “right” that necessarily presupposes
that another defenseless human life may be ended. Instead of protecting the
weakest against the strongest, constitutional protection is granted to the
stronger party to dispose of the life of the weaker.
The
designation of abortion as a “women’s right” is also misleading from a Catholic perspective. Of
course women possess exactly the same human dignity and rights as men, and
society has a serious obligation to provide genuine support to pregnant women.
But no human right can consist in the right directly to kill another innocent
human being. Moreover, in approximately half of all cases, the unborn child is
herself a girl. Her right to life can hardly be abolished in the name of women’s rights.
There
is also a strange reversal at work in the contemporary debate. A woman is
effectively told that she can only enjoy the same opportunities as a man if,
when necessary, she can medically suppress her fertility and terminate a
pregnancy. That does not strike me as the liberation of women, but rather as
forcing women to adapt to a society that fails to take motherhood sufficiently
into account.