In its Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (6th Edition), the USCCB defines “abortion” as “the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus.”1This is what most people have in mind when they think of abortion.
However, there is another way in which the USCCB defines “abortion”—namely, “the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability.”2 One reason the USCCB includes this definition is to not limit abortions to cases where the child is “viable.” Also, it is meant to exclude a route that a pro-abortion advocate might take to avoid the charge of directly killing an innocent human being.
Such a route involves the termination of a pregnancy where the pre-viable baby (if possible) is simply extracted from the womb (whether through surgery or induced labor) without being directly killed. It would seem that such an extraction would bypassthe “thy shalt not kill the innocent” command altogether. The baby’s death, on this view, would be considered an unintended side-effect of a purportedly medical act. The act would be by nature of the kind extracting the baby from the womb or re-locating the baby, not an act of the kind deliberate killing.
…..To read the full article, which was published by Journal of Truth on May 8, 2025, CLICK HERE.