Pope Francis announced this week that the Catholic Church will begin forgiving the "sin of abortion" in December. Until now, abortion was considered a grave and mortal sin that merited excommunication from the church.
While Pope Francis has gotten a rep for being a "progressive" pope for his viewpoints on everything from climate change to gay marriage, he still emphasized the enormity of the sin of abortion. His decision to allow forgiveness for abortion was based not on a re-consideration of its role as a sin, but instead on what he deemed the "existential and moral ordeal" that leads women to have an abortion.
Also lurking behind the pope's change of heart is his belief that many women simply don't understand the impact of their decision to have an abortion or feel like they have no other options. If these women approach their priests with a "contrite heart," Pope Francis's decree will allow them to receive forgiveness for their sin.
While this is, of course, better than excommunicating women for their reproductive choices, it is still founded on the premise that abortion is a sin and that men in power must absolve women of their mistakes. It also continues to paint women as incapable of understanding their options and making autonomous choices for their bodies and their lives.
Although Pope Francis has been "progressive" in many areas, at least as Catholic doctrine goes, he has been unwilling to re-consider the church's ban on contraceptives. Now that the pope acknowledges that women feel trapped and without options when they seek abortions, this reluctance is particularly damning.
Birth control reduces abortions, plain and simple. Church doctrine that leaves women without options thrusts them into the very ordeal the pope describes while placing the blame for the situation squarely on their shoulders. Catholics may not need to "breed like rabbits" or have abortions, but the pope is being disingenuous by failing to recognize the crucial role contraceptives play in female reproductive choices.
