Pope Francis compared abortion to hiring a hitman to kill a child Wednesday in an interview with COPE radio in Spain.
“It is a life. A human life. Some say, ‘It’s not a person.’ It is a human life!” the pope told the news radio group, Breitbart reports.
The Catholic leader frequently uses the “hitman” analogy in his condemnation of abortion and pleas for society to recognize unborn babies as valuable human beings. In 2018, he caused international outrage when he first made the comparison.
In the new interview this week, the pope said the issue comes down to two questions: First, “is it licit to eliminate a human life to solve a problem, is it fair to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? Second question: Is it right to hire a paid assassin to solve a problem?”
The pope said the pro-life position is based in science as well as morality. He pointed out that “any embryology manual given to a medical student” states that “all the organs in the embryo are already present, as is the DNA” by the third week after conception – often before the mother even knows she is pregnant, according to the report.
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Pope Francis mourned the devastating impact of abortion on society, especially in Europe where the population is aging rapidly.
“In Italy, the average age is 47 years old. In Spain, I think it is older,” he said. “That is to say, the pyramid has been inverted. It is the demographic winter of births, in which there are more cases of abortion.”
He continued: “We are living in a throwaway culture. What is useless is discarded … The old… and the terminally ill and the unwanted children, they are returned to sender before they are born.”
Pope Francis frequently speaks about the value of unborn babies and condemns abortions. During one of his Holy Week messages in the spring, he urged people to remember the sufferings of “the innocent victims of wars, dictatorships, everyday violence, abortions.” Earlier this year, he expressed pain at the growing push for legalized abortions across the world. Speaking to the ambassadors to the Holy See in Rome, the pope urged leaders to protect every human life, including unborn babies “from conception in the womb.”
He frequently describes aborted babies as victims of a “throwaway culture” and encourages society to recognize their value.
