Building a Better Future for All by Embracing Human Life

July 11, 2023

By Dr. José Almonte

With the historic overturning of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court opinion in the Dobbs decision last year, access to abortion has once again become a national debate. The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be protected and respected from conception until natural death. The right to life is a foundational principle that must be respected to have a just society. Respecting life and human dignity is one of the key principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST), and it is also the principle we often hear of when we discuss abortion. However, the other central themes of CST also shed light to the Church’s stance on this issue beginning with the theme of family, community, and participation.

Participation refers to the idea that every person has a right and duty to participate fully in society and its institutions for the common good. At the heart of society is the family. Catholic social teaching emphasizes the importance of the family as the basic unit of society, in particular the importance of fostering stable marriages where children are welcomed and educated. Much has been done in society to attack the family unit through contraception, divorce and abortion to name a few. Further, the current culture in many parts of the world promotes abortion as a “best practice” in health care. Proponents of abortion argue that it is necessary to give women the “right to choose” what they do with their bodies, and that it is a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the birth of children who may not be able to be cared for properly.

From a Catholic Social teaching perspective, however, this stance is fundamentally flawed. Instead of providing women with the “right to choose,” it undermines their ability to participate fully in society by having the opportunity to nurture and care for their unborn children. The culture’s focus on abortion as a solution to social problems overlooks the real solutions that Catholic Social Teaching proposes, such as support for mothers and families (solidarity), access to affordable health care (preferential option for the poor and vulnerable), education, and employment (common good).

Women in crisis pregnancy often feel helpless and hopeless when they “choose” abortion, but the Church teaches a more holistic approach. Viewing each woman and her unborn child with their individual dignity, the Church calls society to love them both and take effective steps to secure their good. In doing so, it strengthens all of society. “To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity,” (Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth [Caritas in Veritate], no. 7).

It is for this reason that the Church calls the faithful to work toward authentic support for women in crisis pregnancies by providing housing, prenatal care, baby supplies, parental training, spiritual support and employment resources. Pregnancy centers around the country provide such services, and many CMA doctors are involved in pregnancy centers offering their care pro-bono, taking seriously their call to give preferential option to women in poverty and in vulnerable states such as in a crisis pregnancy. Long-term residential facilities for single mothers, often called “mothers homes,” provide long-term housing up to a child’s fifth birthday all the while providing single mothers with the tools needed to be successful at work and at home.

“To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it,” wrote St. John Paul II in Cenesimus Annus. Love and justice demand action. They demand making love felt and working to alleviate the material impoverishments that threaten human dignity. It starts in the physical but ends in the spiritual, the soul. Children can be unplanned joys whether it is to a birth mother or an adoptive one. By providing safety nets, love, guidance, alternatives and support, women are empowered and true justice is served.

Therefore, through its social doctrine, the Church encourages individuals to participate in building a society that values human life, including the lives of vulnerable women and their unborn children. By embracing the principles of CST and its comprehensive framework for ethical decision-making in medicine, we’ll be working together to create a better future for all.

Dr. José Almonte is a family medicine resident at Ascension Providence Hospital Family Medicine Residency of the Wayne State University School of Medicine located in Rochester, Mich. He is a member of the Blessed Solanus Casey Guild and the Catholic Social Teaching on Justice in Medicine (CST) Committee. Dr. Almonte is also actively involved in providing medical care to underserved populations through his volunteer work at Malta Medical and Dental clinic in Detroit, as well as through street medicine and the Wayne State University mobile health unit.