Pope Francis says abortion can never be condoned, even when the foetus is gravely sick or likely to die, and has urged doctors and priests to support families to carry such pregnancies to term.

Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored anti-abortion conference, the Pope said the opposition to abortion was not a religious issue but a human one.

“Is it licit to throw away a life to resolve a problem? he asked.

“Is it licit to hire a hitman to resolve a problem?”

Pope Francis denounced decisions to abort based on prenatal testing and said a human being is “never incompatible with life”.

Even those babies destined to die at birth or soon thereafter deserve to receive medical care in the womb, he said, adding that their parents need to be supported so they did not feel isolated and afraid.

While one can argue about using medical resources this way, there is value to it for the parents, he said.

“Taking care of these children helps parents to grieve and not only think of it as a loss, but as a step on a path taken together,” the Pope said.

Pope Francis has spoken out strongly against abortion but also has expressed sympathy for women who have had them and has made it easier for them to be absolved of the sin of abortion.

Legal challenges expected as US states tighten abortion laws :-
His comments come as the abortion debate again makes headlines in the US, with state initiatives seeking to restrict the procedure.

The state of Alabama approved legislation to ban abortions in almost all cases, and Missouri passed a bill stopping women from seeking the procedure after the eighth week of pregnancy.

Across the country, 16 other states are looking to tighten their abortion laws while Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia recently approved bans on abortions once a foetal heartbeat was detected in the sixth week of pregnancy.

The US Supreme Court made abortion a constitutional right in 1973 through the landmark Roe v Wade case and advocates who support access to abortion have vowed to fight the recent state law changes all the way to the highest courts.

At a meeting of an Italian family association last year, the Pope likened abortion to the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics program.

In those remarks, he also denounced prenatal tests that can result in parents choosing to terminate a pregnancy if the foetus is malformed or suffering problems.

“Last century, the whole world was scandalised by what the Nazis did to purify the race,” the Pope said.

“Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves.”

He has also given priests the power to forgive abortion, which was a right previously reserved for bishops or special confessors in most parts of the world.

In Roman Catholic teaching, abortion is such a serious sin that those who procure or perform it incur automatic excommunication until it is absolved in confession.