Cardinal O’Malley, other Mass. bishops condemn new state abortion law

Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the state’s other 3 Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday condemned the Massachusetts Legislature’s determination to override a veto from Governor Charlie Baker and enshrine abortion legal rights in condition legislation.

© Nic Antaya for The Boston Globe
Cardinal Sean O’Malley spoke at the St. Francis Household in Boston on Christmas Working day.

The new law will make it possible for abortions after 24 weeks of being pregnant in instances of a lethal fetal anomaly and if “necessary, in the most effective healthcare judgment of the medical doctor, to maintain the patient’s bodily or psychological wellbeing.” It will also reduced from 18 to 16 the age at which a individual can find an abortion without consent from a parent or a choose.

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The invoice, originally passed inside the state price range and then returned by Baker with amendments that lawmakers ultimately turned down, was reaffirmed by the two residences of the Legislature this week.

O’Malley, Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha of Fall River, and Bishop William D. Byrne of Springfield claimed in a statement that they “are deeply disappointed” by the Legislature’s choice. They extra that abortion is a “serious ethical wrong and straight undercuts our unyielding objective to boost the widespread superior through a civil modern society.”

The bishops stated they would recommit on their own to the conception of normal death.

“The Catholic Church recognizes that it has a main ethical responsibility to speak for the most vulnerable between us — the unborn,” they stated. “That duty is at the centre of the Catholic moral vision. Since of its centrality, the Church ought to oppose the specifically meant getting of human daily life as a result of abortion at any stage of being pregnant.”