Women’s group approved by German bishops demands abortions in Catholic hospitals

MAINZ, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Women’s Association of Germany (kfd) has demanded that abortion be carried out in Catholic hospitals.

The kfd adopted a position paper, titled “Between the Protection of Life and Self-Determination: Positions and Perspectives of the kfd on Section 218 of the German Criminal Code,” at its assembly in Mainz last weekend.

The document states: “The kfd demands that abortions must also be available in Catholic hospitals.”

The group argued that Catholic hospitals not offering abortions “endangers the physical and mental health of those with unwanted pregnancies.”

The kfd is Germany’s largest Catholic women’s association with around 265,000 members. Other than supporting access to abortion, the group also called for free access to contraceptives and health insurance coverage for abortion. The Catholic Church has categorically condemned both abortion and the use of contraception.

Additionally, the group has called for ordaining women to the priesthood and passed a resolution in 2020 declaring that membership with Germany’s conservative AfD party is a disqualifying factor for joining the kfd. The German Bishops’ Conference has approved the group’s statutes as an official Catholic lay organization under canon law.

The heterodox German women’s association also went after the pro-life movement, stating that it is “against fundamentalist and anti-democratic instrumentalizations of the issue.”

“The kfd also closely monitors the so-called ‘pro-life activists,’ who for years have been loudly and aggressively claiming to ‘protect every life’ through rallies such as the ‘March for Life’ and ‘1,000 Crosses,’” the group said in its paper.

“In many countries, including Germany, sexual and reproductive rights are being challenged and attacked by radical right-wing forces and religious fundamentalists,’ kfd continued.

Under the Church’s labor law in Germany, doctors in Catholic hospitals are not permitted to perform abortions, and the German state has tolerated this exception so far.

The kfd did affirm the fact “that life begins with the fertilization of the egg” but still supports the murder of the unborn because, the group states, it seeks to harmonize letting women choose whether to carry the pregnancy to term with “respect for life from the very beginning.”

The Catholic Church has always unequivocally condemned abortion as murder and therefore a mortal sin.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states:

Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: “You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.”

Moreover, formal cooperation in an abortion carries the penalty of automatic excommunication. The 1983 Code of Canon Law states: “A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.”