e severe pain. After an abortion a woman should relax for the rest ofthe day, but she can return to normal activities, excluding sexual intercourse, the nextday.There is a wide spectrum of opinions regarding abortion. There are those peoplewho are willing to murder doctors and women at an abortion clinic. There are those whofeel that a person should have the right to choose if they want to have one. Then thereare those who believe it is a violation of our freedom to make abortions illegal.The Catholic Church has taken a strong stance against abortion. In the 14thcentury a Dominican moralist and Archbishop of Florence, Antoninus, condemedanyone who would attempt or have anything to do with an abortion. He claimed theywere guilty of sin, regardless if the abortion was successful or not. Antoninus does,however, write that abortion is okay if it is necessary to save the mother's life. The Second Vatican Council refers to abortion as an "unspeakable crime". ThePope defined abortion as "the deliberate killing by whatever means it is carried out, of ahuman being in the intial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception tobirth". It is written in the "Declaration on Procured Abortion" that "from the time that theovum is fertilized, a life has begun which is neither that of the father or mother; it israther the life of a new human being with it's own growth. It would never be madehuman if it were not human already. (Farminton Fellowship Study)The Church's stance is that from the time an egg is fertilized by a sperm, there is ahuman life, which can not be taken by anyone. The Church argues that just as a personmay not kill another on the street, a person may not kill an innocent fetus. To lookthrough the Church's eyes on the issue of abortion is to see it as a violation of the firstcommandment, "thou shalt not kill".One of the most difficult abortion related issues faced by our country's lawmakersare parental consent la...
