Can Catholics agree on anything about abortion?

Catholics of all political stripes can come together around supporting women and children.

We are all familiar with the story in the Gospel of John when Jesus encounters a woman accused of adultery, the penalty for which is death by stoning. The Pharisees in this narrative exploit the woman’s circumstances to trap Jesus. They are surprised when Jesus says to “let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). The men quietly slink away, and Jesus is left alone with the woman. Then he tells her gently to “go your way, and from now on do not sin again” (John 8:11).

St. Augustine interprets the passage as a call for Christians to uphold the law “genuinely”—rather than legalistically—by, for example, “condemning adultery through chastity.” This lens offers important insights to the contemporary “abortion wars” that have bifurcated the church in the United States. Just as Jesus focuses his attention on the structural issues that contribute to the adulterous woman’s actions—on the men who objectify and exploit her, who try to make her pay the price for an injustice in which another man is at least equally complicit—so Catholics should come together around policy issues that promote gender and racial equity to empower women and their families, including their unborn children.

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