During his weekly general audience on Wednesday, October 10, 2018, in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis once again spoke out against abortion. The pope was discussing the fifth commandment – thou shalt not kill – when he began to speak about abortion.
“A contradictory approach permits the suppression of human life in the maternal womb in the name of safeguarding other rights,” he said. “But how can an act that suppresses innocent and defenseless budding human life be therapeutic, civil or simply human? I ask you: it is right to do away with a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? One cannot do this, it is not right to do away with a human being, albeit small, to solve a problem. It is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem.”
This is, of course, not the first time Pope Francis has been outspoken about his and the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion. Abortion goes against the teachings of the Catholic Church, which believes that all human beings deserve the right to life from fertilization until natural death.
READ: Here’s why abortion is wrong – the science
In June of 2018, the pope compared abortion in the cases of fetal diagnoses to the eugenics of the Nazi regime.
“I have heard that it’s fashionable, or at least usual, that when in the first months of pregnancy they do studies to see if the child is healthy or has something, the first offer is: let’s send it away,” he said. “I say this with pain. In the last century, the whole world was scandalized about what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today we do the same but with white gloves.”
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers practiced eugenic methods including sterilization and euthanasia of people with physical and mental disabilities in order to create what they believed to be a perfect race.
Pope Francis’ latest comments against abortion came days after the Senate of his home country of Argentina rejected a bill to legalize elective abortion.
