April 21, 2024

Pope speaks out on post-abortion syndrome, conscience

Mumbai

Pope argues for generosity and solidarity

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Pope Benedict XVI has endorsed the existence of post-abortion syndrome in a recent speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life. “Post-abortion syndrome — the serious psychological difficulties often felt by women who have taken recourse to voluntary abortion — reveals the irrepressible voice of the moral conscience, and the grave wound it suffers each time that human action betrays the person’s innate vocation to good, and of which he gives witness,” he declared.

He argued that doctors “cannot fail to cannot fail to consider important the grave duty to defend against the deception of the conscience of many women who think they will find in abortion the solution to family, economic, social difficulties or to the problems of health of their children. Especially in this last situation, the woman is convinced, often by the doctors themselves, that abortion represents not only a licit moral choice, but that in addition it is a necessary “therapeutic” act to avoid the suffering of the child and of its family and an “unjust” burden to society.”

Pope Benedict also spoke on umbilical cord blood stem cells, that there is a duty to promote “ethically valid research on the part of institutions” and “the value of the solidarity of individuals in the participation of research directed to promote the common good.” He called for generosity in decisions on whether to store umbilical cord blood for exclusive personal use, arguing that this “weakens the genuine spirit of solidarity which must constantly animate the search of that common good to which, in the last analysis, science and medical research tend.” ~ Zenit, Feb 28

Pope speaks out on post-abortion syndrome, conscience
Jared Yee
Benedict XVI
Catholic Church

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