In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade on June 24th, pro-choice activists criticized the ruling for seemingly forcing religious beliefs onto the populace. Many cited the fact that five of the Supreme Court Justices who sided with the majority opinion were Catholic as evidence that the justices were unfairly using their opinion to legislate their religious beliefs, forcing Catholic doctrine on a largely non-Catholic populace. The idea that religious individuals, no matter their faith, ought to disregard their moral beliefs and principles fundamentally misunderstands the key legal and philosophical principles which undergird our legislative process.

The idea that religious people are to be disqualified from enshrining their beliefs in law is wrong for two key reasons. First, all laws legislate someone’s moral beliefs. Whether it’s stealing, kidnapping, or any other crime, those laws are made because people believe it’s immoral to do those acts. In fact, if people didn’t base their laws on morality, they would merely be an exercise in power. The question isn’t whether or not we should legislate moral beliefs, but rather whose moral beliefs should be legislated. This leads us to the second reason: not all beliefs held by religious people are religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are, essentially, beliefs about religious things, like doctrines about baptism, beliefs in papal infallibility, Marian dogmas, etc. It would be inappropriate to legislate these religious beliefs. No one thinks that the law should force all individuals to genuflect out of reverence before the tabernacle, and no one is trying to legislate that. People can, and should legislate their moral beliefs, not necessarily their religious ones; that’s how the legislative process works.

So what about abortion specifically? Before we can see whether abortion is a purely religious belief or a reasoned moral belief, a brief overview of the Church’s teaching is required. It is unequivocally true that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion, at any stage, is gravely immoral. As Pope St. John Paul II writes in Evangelium Vitae:

“Therefore by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors, and in communion with the bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.”

Written in 1995, this paragraph communicates that the Church’s teaching on abortion is permanent, and not subject to change by three separate means: Sacred Scripture, the magisterium, and third what’s known as an ex-cathedra teaching (since the paragraph meets the criteria for an exercise of papal infallibility). Put simply, it is impossible to reverse this teaching, and to disagree with the Church teaching on the matter is to essentially refuse to believe that the Church is infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit. This is not some new teaching that the Pope came up with on his own either. In fact, the Catholic stance on abortion has not changed since the first century AD. In The Didache, a short treatise that contains the teachings of the apostles written in 70 AD, it writes:

“The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1-2).

Even in this text, written at the same time as the Gospels, the Church maintains its adamantly pro-life stance.
So it’s clear from these texts that the Church believes that abortion is wrong. But is it just another religious belief? If we take a look at the texts again, we find the beginnings of an answer to that question. First, taking a look back at the Didache, we see that our religious beliefs prohibit other immoral acts, like murder and stealing. Yet, these are clearly illegal, and no one would advocate for their legality - Catholic or not. The belief that stealing is wrong, for instance, isn’t a religious belief. In Evangelium Vitae, JPII uses the phrase “that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart”. By this, Pope. St. John Paul II is communicating that one doesn’t have to be Catholic to know that abortion is wrong, one just has to properly apply their reason, the same way we know murder or stealing to be wrong too.

The argument against abortion is not a religious one. It is merely an application of moral common sense based on a logical syllogism:

1. The deliberate taking of innocent human life is always wrong.
2. Abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life.
3. Therefore, Abortion is always wrong

No Bible quotes are needed. In fact, in trying to persuade others of their opinions, pro-lifers frequently reference science and philosophy in attempting to prove that abortion kills an innocent human being. Without getting into all of them now, pro-life advocates and apologists (like my personal favorite Trent Horn) frequently cite embryology textbooks, arguments on humanity and culpability, and even articles from leading pro-choice philosophers (who nearly all agree that unborn children are biological human beings).

To sum it all up, religious people shouldn’t be excluded from legislating their moral beliefs. No one is, since all laws legislate someone’s moral beliefs. And second, not all beliefs held by religious people are religious beliefs. The Church’s teaching on abortion doesn’t apply merely to those who believe. Pope St. John Paul II’s words echo for all to hear, Catholic or not, when he continues, “No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself and proclaimed by the Church.”