Pope Francis Equates Right to Abortion With Hiring Hitman

Pope Francis Wednesday made an analogous argument which equated having an abortion to hiring a hitman to eliminate a “problematic person”.  

RELATED:

Colombia: Women Rights Groups Appeal to Top Court Against More Restrictions on Abortion

“Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? You cannot, it is not right to kill a human being, regardless of how small it is, to solve a problem. It is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem,” he said during a weekly address to believers in Vatican’s Saint Peter’s Square.

He rejected the right of having an abortion as a human right. “How can an act that suppresses innocent and defenseless life as it blossoms be therapeutic, civil or simply human?” he argued.

The gathered crowd agreed with the Pope’s address and encouraged his views on abortion.

Previously, the Pope compared abortion to a ‘white glove’ version of the Nazi eugenics programs to preserve ‘racial purity’.

He also spoke about “depreciation of human life” as he cited wars, exploitation and “a culture of wastefulness” as problems, other than abortion.

According to him, parents should not reject sick children. "When, during pregnancy, parents discover that their child is affected by a disease, they need real closeness, real solidarity, to face reality, and overcoming understandable fears. Instead, they often receive hasty advice to terminate the pregnancy," he said.

In August, he intervened in his home country Argentina to advocate against a bill seeking to legalize abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The bill fell through resulting in around 3,000 Argentinians renouncing the Catholic Church as an institution.

In April, he said that helping the poor and destitute should be as important as fighting against abortion.  

Shortly after becoming Pope in March 2013, Francis appeared to downplay the importance of “cultural war” issues such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage, saying in an interview the Church had become “obsessed” with them and it should address social issues such as poverty, injustice, and immigration.