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Shop NowPresident Joe Biden supported his position on abortion by claiming that “Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically concluded” in response to the leaked opinion that reveals a Supreme Court vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. The president cited Saint Thomas Aquinas and touted mainstream religious support as he attempted to explain why he supports enforcing a federal right to abortion.
Biden references St. Thomas Aquinas on abortion issue
Biden himself maintains that he is still a Roman Catholic, and this was clearly the faith that was on his mind as he discussed religious support for abortion.
His reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most admired and influential scholars in the history of Christianity, referred to his speculation about when precisely life begins.
Following Aristotle, Aquinas suggested that a child can be said to have a human soul once quickening takes place and the mother can feel movement.
Biden specifically referred to quickening but he did not offer his own opinion on life begins, instead using the example of Aquinas to argue that mainstream religions frequently dispute the question, a state of affairs that amounts to approval for abortion in Biden’s mind.
His own Catholic Church does not approve of abortion and believes, in contrast to Aquinas, that life begins at the moment of conception.
The debates alluded to by Biden do take place, but Aquinas condemned abortion at every stage of pregnancy even if he believed that human life begins at some point after conception.
Mainstream religions disagree
The philosophical dispute is the only difference with contemporary Catholic teaching; abortion is not to be permitted either way. The Eastern Orthodox Church is similarly opposed to all abortion.
Views vary in other mainstream religious groups, but few have anything like the uniform approval for the views embraced by Roe v. Wade that Biden claimed.
Conservative and liberal Protestant denominations differ as one would expect on abortion, but most have historically disapproved and the issue has been divisive even in the churches that now support Roe v. Wade.
Buddhism and Hinduism are generally against abortion, and while views vary considerably within Islam, most Muslim countries place limits on abortion and some ban it entirely.
Of the mainstream religions in America, the only one that has something approaching a consensus in favor of abortion as Biden sees it is Judaism, though branches still differ and it has been a controversial issue in Israel.
Catholicism, at least, is clear on the subject and strongly condemns the position Biden supports. The Catholic justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade are much closer to Rome’s position than Biden is.
