Pope Francis on the "grave injustice" of abortion

Pope Francis will be buried on Saturday, and millions of Catholics worldwide mourn his death. Many will also remember his strong opposition to abortion - which he likened to hiring a hitman - and his call to protect life, saying the most vulnerable, including the unborn and the elderly bore the face of Christ. 

Just months before he died, he ushered in the New Year with a renewed appeal for the faithful to reject abortion, calling for a “firm commitment” to protect and respect life from conception to natural death.

At a New Year’s Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, he prayed that everyone learns to care for “every child born of a woman” and to protect “the precious gift of life: life in the womb, the lives of children, the lives of the suffering, the poor, the elderly, the lonely and the dying.”

“I ask for a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person may cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to the future,” he said. 

During his Pontificate, Pope Francis had always spoken strongly against abortion and for the protection of life. 

Here are some of the most memorable of his statements. 

Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person…even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests!” 

Speech to Catholic healthcare professionals and gynaecologists, September 20, 2013.

Abortion is a grave injustice. It can never be a legitimate expression of autonomy and power. If our autonomy requires the death of others, then that autonomy of ours is nothing more than an iron cage. I often ask myself two questions: Is it right to eliminate a human life in order to solve a problem? And is it right to hire a hitman in order to solve a problem? 

Pope Francis to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 2021. 

“Doctors who do this are — allow me the word — hitmen. They are hitmen. And on this you cannot argue. You are killing a human life.” 

Pope Francis to journalists Belgium, 2021

"[It is] ‘false compassion‘ which holds that it is a benefit to women to promote abortion": 

Pope Francis, address to Italian Catholic Physicians Association, 2014. 

“I have had occasion to return to the subject of abortion recently. You know that I am very clear about this: it is a homicide and it is not licit to become an accomplice.” 

Pope Francis, address to Italian Society of Hospital Pharmacy and the Pharmaceutical Services of Health Authorities 2021

“Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this…Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question…It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life…”. 

Evangelii Gaudium par 213-214.

“The plague of abortion is an attack on life.    Pope Francis, address to the Science and Life Association, 2015.  At the origin of this 'throwaway culture' is a gross lack of respect for human dignity, the promotion of ideologies with reductive understandings of the human person, a denial of the universality of fundamental human rights, and a craving for absolute power and control that is widespread in today's society. Let us name this for what it is: an attack against humanity itself. 

Pope Francis, address to the UN, 2020. 

“Let the abortion and killing of innocent lives end.” 

Pope Francis, St Peter's Basilica, Holy Saturday, 2020.

At a distance of seventy years, it is painful to see how many fundamental rights continue to be violated today. I think primarily of innocent children discarded even before they are born, unwanted at times simply because they are ill or malformed, or as a result of the selfishness of adults. 

Pope Francis, address to the diplomatic corps, 2018