Photo Credits: Fox35 Orlando
During his address at the Vatican last October, Pope Francis asked the audience is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem. He was speaking about abortion and he compared it to hiring a hitman stigmatizing every woman who had an abortion. His statement was cruel and widely criticized. And this May he repeated it at an anti-abortion conference in Rome stating that no matter the reason an abortion should not be performed.
“Is it legitimate to take out a human life to solve a problem?” Francis asked attendees at a Vatican conference on the issue, repeating one of his most contentious remarks on the issue. “Is it permissible to contract a hitman to solve a problem?” A decision to abort based on medical information about an ill fetus amounted to “inhuman eugenics,” he said, and denied families the chance to welcome the weakest of children. He argued that using abortion as a mode of “prevention” could never be condoned, and that such a position had “nothing to do” with faith. “Human life is sacred and inviolable and the use of prenatal diagnosis for selective purposes should be discouraged with strength,” Francis said, as Patheos reports.
The Pontiff's statement is repeated just at the moment when many American states, including Georgia and Alabama, are passing legislation to ban abortion almost completely, even without exceptions for cases of rape and incest. The anti-abortion campaign is widely spreading, fueled by the Church and Pope Francis repeating their opinions on the subject. But the way he expressed that opinion is extremely inhuman and without compassion to understand what women in that position are dealing with. He’s equating women who choose not to be pregnant to people who callously kill strangers for cash and his statement was widely criticized for the first time. According to CNN, he subsequently faced fierce criticism from pro-choice campaigners and politicians. Franziska Giffey, the German family affairs minister, described Pope Francis' remarks as "absolutely unacceptable." "Stigmatizing these women as contract killers is absolutely unacceptable," she said. "Accusations and insults are the wrong way."
The Church and the Pope are opposing abortion which is a legitimate medical procedure that can help save lives and protect victims of rape and incest. Could the Church start promoting sex education, contraception and birth control in order to actually lower the number of abortions Instead of opposing them?
