(LifeSiteNews) — The chairman of the Polish Catholic bishops’ conference rebuked the European Parliament’s recent resolution demanding abortion be declared a “fundamental right” and condemned abortion as murder.
On April 11, the same day the European Parliament passed its pro-abortion resolution, the Polish Bishops Conference (KEP) published a statement by Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, the KEP’s chairman.
READ: EU Parliament demands abortion be declared a ‘fundamental right’ in radical new resolution
“Unborn children are the most vulnerable and innocent of all people,” Wojda wrote. “Abortion also poses a threat to women and their loved ones, as well as to society as a whole. It causes serious threats to women’s health, which leads to great, long-term suffering of mothers in both physical, mental and spiritual aspects.”
“Pro-abortion propaganda falsely proclaims that it is their free choice and law,” he continued.
Citing Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, the archbishop wrote: “But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth (Evangelium Vitae 58).”
He stressed that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church “has always protected human life from conception.”
Again quoting St. John Paul II, Wojda wrote:
Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. (…). But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. (…) Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception (Evangelium Vitae 58).
Wojda pointed out that the Polish Constitution protects the life of the unborn.
“The Polish Constitution provides every person with legal protection of life (Article 38), and also protects motherhood, parenthood and family (Article. 18),” he said. “This is a fundamental right that no one should violate.”
“I am asking all people of good will for caring for the lives of unborn children and their mothers, for opposition to a culture of exclusion that deprives the most vulnerable and weak people of the basic right – the right to life,” Archbishop Wojda concluded.
On April 11, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution that calls for the inclusion of abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The resolution calls for a complete decriminalization of abortion, citing the WHO’s 2022 abortion guidelines, and for countries such as Poland and Malta to repeal laws that restrict or ban the killing of unborn babies.
The text also attacks doctors and nurses who refuse to participate in an abortion due to conscience objections, falsely claiming that delaying abortions could harm women. Direct abortion is always gravely immoral and never needed nor ethically justified to save a mother’s life or protect her health.
The document demands that “Abortion methods and procedures should be an obligatory part of the curriculum for doctors and medical students” and that member states ensure “comprehensive and age-appropriate sexuality and relationship education.”
The resolution is non-binding, and to change the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to include the “right” to abortion, unanimous agreement among all 27 member states would be needed.