There is a tendency in the modern world to consider abortion as a woman’s right, just as religious freedom, political choices, or the choice of a spouse are considered rights, and so on. But this reasoning is truly absurd: it reveals a misunderstanding of the meaning of a right, since it fails to recognize that every right of one person always presupposes a duty on the part of another person.

In the case of abortion, it is clear that if one believes that a conceived being has the right to life, then the pregnant woman has the duty to give birth to it, just as a child has the right to be raised and educated and the parents have the duty to do so, and so on.

The problem of abortion depends on determining at what moment the conceived being is considered a human person: from that moment on, it is universally recognized as having the right to be born; until it is considered a human being, the pregnant woman may decide whether to continue or terminate the pregnancy.

We follow the principle that one must not kill a human being (except in some cases); however, what it means to be a human being is not a fact but a definition we assign. Thus, some believe that the conceived being is a human person from the moment of fertilization (in which case even the morning-after pill would be considered murder), others think at 3 months, at 5 months, or at birth. Some believe that a person exists when there is self-awareness, while others think it is sufficient that there is the potential to acquire it at a later stage, and so on.

In reality, there is no objective criterion for determining when one becomes a person.

Even religions (Christians and Muslims) do not agree on the moment when the ovum, a living being, becomes a living person: it is generally agreed that this would be the moment when God infuses the soul. But what would that moment be? Muslims believe that this occurs 120 days after conception, although not all agree; in the Christian Middle Ages it was said to occur at 40 days for males and 80 for females (a rather bizarre idea). The Church today does not specify the moment of the soul’s infusion but considers abortion a sin from the very first moment of conception precisely because we do not know when this moment occurs. As can be seen, even within the religious sphere there has been great uncertainty.

Neither the position of those in favor of abortion nor that of those against it is scientific: both are based solely on adopting a definition of personhood that we freely choose.

In reality, in practice it is the woman who decides, but this decision does not depend on religious or ideological beliefs, but rather on the feeling she experiences: if she feels that the conceived being is alive, the maternal instinct—the strongest in nature—arises, and in no case, at no cost, is she willing to have an abortion, which would mean killing her own child. If instead she feels that in her womb there is not yet a child but only the possibility of one forming, then she may decide whether to continue or interrupt the pregnancy; in any case, it is never something as simple as drinking a glass of water.

One should also consider that the child does not belong only to the woman but also to the man, yet this point is rarely mentioned; indeed, it almost seems shameful to bring it up. But even if the burden of carrying a pregnancy is very heavy for a woman, this does not mean that the responsibility of providing for a child—which falls on both parents—is insignificant; on the contrary, it lasts practically a lifetime.

There would also be the woman’s right to want or not want children. In truth, a woman naturally has, as her most important aspiration, motherhood, according to nature. However, modern life, which increasingly distances itself from nature, often leads her into a conflict between motherhood and modern life, with career, well-being, and many other factors that our ancestors could not even have imagined.

Even this last right—to have or not have children—is still relative, like any other right: if women no longer wanted to have children, our species would become extinct. At present, our country—and more generally Western civilization—is facing a serious decline in birth rates that seriously threatens our entire society, with the increasingly looming prospect of so-called ethnic replacement or, more accurately, civilizational replacement.

But aside from the social issue, there is also, more immediately, the issue within the couple. If a woman marries, it is presumed that she is willing to give birth. The husband also has the right to have children, unless this is agreed upon beforehand: it is not the case that husband and wife each have the right (separately) to decide whether to have children or not.

The Church also considers a marriage invalid if the intention to have children is excluded.