Abortion is a sin, but…

I am a Catholic who learned philosophy in the major seminary.

I am also a lawyer specialising in sexual and reproductive rights.

This combination sometimes brings my faith into conflict with my profession, particularly on controversial issues like abortion.

My faith says intentional termination of a pregnancy is a sin.

However, from human rights, access to safe abortion is recognised as a fundamental right for women.

This creates a dilemma for me.

Through research and experience, I know that many girls and women in Malawi who seek unsafe abortion because penal laws restrict abortion only to cases where continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the life or health of the woman such as those with heart disease.

Abortion outside this narrow scope is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Women who fall outside the restrictive legal framework, such as those seeking to continue learning, resort to unsafe methods like poking themselves with a cassava stick.

These desperate measures often lead to severe complications that sometimes require the removal of the uterus and some girls and women die.

As a Catholic, I believe that the the church’s Canon law automatically excommunicates a person who procures an abortion, except girls under 16.

This is not intended to permanently exclude the individual, but to provide a path for admonition, repentance and re-education in Church moral teachings.

This leads to an existential crisis for me: How do I reconcile my Catholic teachings against abortion with my professional stance that recognizes it as a human right?

Once, I was invited for a conversation by the late Archbishop Tarcisius Ziyaye, who knew me well.

He asked me a profound question: “Have you abandoned your faith?”

I truthfully said “No” as I have never stopped being Catholic.

However, our conversation resulted in my deepened reflection on whether I, as a Catholic, can support the State’s decriminalisation of abortion.

I found an answer in an unlikely source: The biblical story of Jesus and the adulterous woman.

The Pharisees, acting as both religious leaders and legal enforcers, brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus, expecting Him to affirm her execution as prescribed by the Law of Moses. Yet, by the end of their interaction, they had left in shame, sparing the woman.

I have often wondered: What changed their minds?

In my view, Jesus pointed out the injustice in the application of the Law. Why was the man left scot-free while the woman faced the harshest punishment—death?

The Law of Moses, which was supposed to be based on love, was instead being applied selectively and unjustly to women. Importantly, Jesus did not legalise adultery, but Jesus exposed the gender bias and unfairness inherent in the Law’s application.

This mirrors the situation with abortion today. Despite that the Constitution recognising a bill of rights, including the rights of women, the state’s penal laws on abortion target girls and women, especially the vulnerable.

Strangely, men, who are equally involved,  are often free from responsibility.

The law is harsh and severe. It condemns women to injury, health complications and death.

Men, protected from these consequences, are often quick to blame and support the continuation of these oppressive laws just like the good ole Pharisees who brought the woman to Jesus.

As a Catholic, I do not personally agree with abortion. However, I also believe that the criminalisation of abortion has a high risk of being unjust to women.

The Church has its moral teachings and systems, such as excommunication, to address abortion issues.

These are carried out with compassion and the aim of redemption, as Jesus demonstrated with the adulterous woman.

The State, on the other hand, enforces its laws through impersonal criminal machinery that harshly punishes women while ignoring the broader patriarchal context.

This, I believe, reflects an injustice rooted in inequality, against which I will passionately fight, while remaining a Catholic.