How is it justified?

Blessed Mother Therese of Calcutta said the following as she spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast Washington, DC, February 3, 1994

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness.

I don't know how anyone could argue against the truth of her statement. What argument does Planned Parenthood and the pro abortion movement have? How could the Supreme Court believe it had the authority to determine an innocent life could be taken? Not out of self defense. Just because one wanted to.Yes, you can call it choice but it's the choice FOR abortion.The term for the health of the mother is used but that's a smoke screen. Health of the mother means anything from a-z and has nothing to do with the health of the mother and definitely not the life of the baby. The abortion supporters say it's my body and you can't tell me what to do with my body.You're not taking the life of your body.You're taking the life of another human being who is NOT you and NOT an organ.Yet abortion is the most common surgical procedure today and it's not used to save a life. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2273

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."81

What if the mother's life is actually endangered?

procedures that will save her life, even if these procedures inevitably involve the death of her unborn child. In these cases it is not a question of intentionally aborting the child. They involve, rather, accepting the loss of the child as an unavoidable consequence of caring for the mother´s health. The clearest and surest example is the ectopic pregnancy. As everyone knows, should the fetus become lodged in the oviduct or fallopian tube, its continued growth will result in the death of both child and mother. A normal and proper procedure in this case is the removal of the fallopian tube, from which the death of the unborn child inevitably follows. In this case the death of the child is not sought, nor is the mother´s life saved by the child´s dying. This is not an abortion. Quite simply, the mother´s life is saved by the surgical removal of the oviduct, not by the death of her child.

Source: Catholic.net Put another way neither the death of the child or mother is intentional;that is the doctor does not deliberately kill either.The first concern of the doctor would be to save both if possible but not to deliberately kill(murder)either one. Bottom line; they seldom use this argument anyway.It's almost always the one re the 'health' of the mother in very broad terms and can mean almost anything. I honestly don't know of anyone who is pro life who is anti woman.That's a contradiction.If you're pro life then you're pro woman. COMMON SENSE. I don't think the pro abortion movement is about anything more than saying i will do what i want period even if that means killing my unborn child.The higher ups in this movement-like Planned Parenthood-are about money for one and a kind of sick rebellion for another.They defend immorality PERIOD and if that means aborting a baby is the end result-so be it.Afer the Gosnell trial i think some people woke up a little bit. Do you really believe it's just this one abortionist? If the one woman hadn't died it wouldn't have mattered. I doubt he'd have been caught.He wasn't caught for the babies he murdered-he was caught because one of the women died. Abortion mills(call them 'clinics' if you like)are no different than the back alley.They've just moved up to a 'respectable' office to make more money. Could someone PLS verify the stats on abortion by coat hanger? I've heard this over and over.I grew up when abortion was illegal.We actually used to say a woman was having a baby and called her a mother.