A word of caution: Vice-President Vance, IVF, abortion pills and Holy Communion
By John Smeaton | 26 February 2025
US President Trump’s and Vice-President Vance’s domination of the Washington March for Life, the world’s flagship event for the anti-abortion lobby, last month, will serve to screen from serious public scrutiny their powerful political support for access to the abortion pill and for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) which, between them, will account for the overwhelming majority of homicides in the US and worldwide in the years ahead and will result in negative repercussions in the war against abortion everywhere.
Now more than ever, therefore, it’s time for courageous Catholic bishops to get fully behind the battle against the killing of the innocents and to caution Vice-President Vance, and other Catholic politicians who back intrinsically evil policies, that they must not approach to receive Holy Communion.1
Vance captured the imagination of anti-abortion campaigners worldwide with his powerful pro-life rhetoric at the March for Life. And last week, at a security conference in Munich, Vance excoriated Britain for banning free speech and even silent prayer on abortion, in so-called “safe” zones around abortion clinics, and he rightly denounced, in particular, the Scottish government which has written to homeowners close to abortion centres warning them that “activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a zone could be an offence”.
Vance’s condemnation of such restrictions of the right to protest — even in one’s own home — against abortion is, of course, immensely welcome, and so too are the large number of Executive Orders in defence of life and the family issued by President Trump during his first weeks in office. They have the potential of saving unborn lives and of protecting many young people, physically and spiritually, from gender ideology, which is currently sweeping through the world, not least from the “transitioning” of a child through chemical and surgical mutilation.
None of these Executive Orders, however, nor Vance’s welcome championship of freedom to speak out and witness against abortion, diminish in the slightest the evil nature of the pro-abortion and pro-IVF policies being pursued by Trump and Vance as arguably the world’s most powerful politicians.
In the final weeks of the presidential race, Donald Trump boasted “I am the father of IVF”, saying “We really are the party for IVF … We want fertilisation that is all the way, and the Democrats tried to attack us on it, and we’re out there on IVF, even more than them.”
Trump has wasted no time in fulfilling his election promise on IVF, signing an Executive Order last week “expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) for Americans” and directing “policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments.”
As for the abortion pill, in an interview with Time magazine, on 12 December 2024, there was the following exchange with the President-elect:
Time Magazine: “I think what the women of America want to know is, Are you committed to making sure that the FDA does not strip their ability to access abortion pills?”
Trump: “That would be my commitment. Yeah, it’s always been my commitment.”
J D Vance, on his part, backs the US president both on IVF and access, throughout the US, to the abortion pill.
In June 2024, J D Vance pinned his pro-IVF colours to the political mast in a joint statement with other Senate Republicans, which read:
“Senate Democrats have embraced a Summer of Scare Tactics — a partisan campaign of false fearmongering intended to mislead and confuse the American people. In vitro fertilization is legal and available in every state across our nation. We strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF, which has allowed millions of aspiring parents to start and grow their families.”
And Vance, several months earlier than Trump, spelled out his position on access to the abortion pill throughout the US, as the National Catholic Register reported (23 January 2025):
“On the question of the abortion pill, what so many of us have said is that: Look, the Supreme Court made a decision that the American people should have access to that medication. Donald Trump has supported that opinion. I support that opinion. I think it’s important to say that we actually have to have an important conversation in this country about what our abortion policy should be.”
In response the direct question of Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, “But just to be clear: You support mifepristone being accessible?” Vance replied, “Yes, Kristen, I do”.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the majority of abortions in the US involved abortion pills — 56% in 2021, up from 39% in 2017. We see the same trajectory in the UK and other parts of the world. Even worse, as Edward Feser, the American Thomistic philosopher, points out, “Since these pills can be sent by mail into states where abortion is restricted or banned, preserving such access largely undermines recent state-level pro-life measures.”
It’s important to note that the US Vice-President has made it crystal clear that he supports abortion, in principle, in certain circumstances. The National Catholic Register reports that in the US Senate campaign in Ohio in 2022, in a debate with his Democratic opponent as a first-time candidate for political office, Vance said he had “always believed in reasonable exceptions,” including allowing a pregnant 10-year-old girl to have an abortion. “I have said, repeatedly on the record, that I think that girl should be able to get an abortion if she and her family so choose to do so,” Vance said.
The gravity of the moral evil of IVF is explained by the Church in the Instructions Donum Vitae (22 February 1987) and Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008) and is further clarified by Edward Feser in his article Pro-Lifers must resist Trump on abortion and IVFin Catholic World Report. He wrote:
“Destroying unused embryos is morally on a par with abortion, and killing unwanted embryos after implantation just is a kind of abortion. To speak harshly but truthfully, the destruction of embryos that is typically involved in IVF is murder, no less than abortion is. A recent estimate puts the number of embryos lost in in the IVF process every year in the United States at over a million and a half — twice the number of abortions that occur in the US every year. Nor, again, is this an evil that can realistically be avoided if IVF is to have the results desired from it. Experts judge that ‘discarding embryos is inherent to the IVF process.’”
Moreover, the evil of every direct abortion has been spelled out by numerous popes including Pope John Paul II who wrote in Evangelium Vitae, explicitly citing his authority which “Christ conferred upon Peter and his apostles, in communion with the bishops”:
“ [D]irect abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
“No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.” (EV, 62)
Later in the Encyclical, Pope John Paul wrote:
“In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it’.” (EV, 73)
In August 2019, J D Vance was baptised and received into the Catholic Church. However, Vice-President Vance’s positions on both IVF and abortion are gravely contrary to Catholic teaching. His Eminence Cardinal Burke, a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, in his 2022 book Deny Holy Communion? reminded his fellow bishops that the discipline of denying Holy Communion “must be applied in order to avoid serious scandal, for example, the erroneous acceptance of procured abortion against the constant teaching of the moral law”.2
Bitter experience teaches us that Catholic politicians worldwide will seek to emulate J D Vance in supporting abortions for one reason or another, and, particularly so, if he is not cautioned and, if necessary, disciplined by the US bishops. His scandalous example will cost the lives of countless unborn children as nations continue to legislate on life issues, not least on IVF and on the abortion pill.
Putting Trump and Vance centre-stage at the Washington March for Life last month, was a major strategic error by the organisers, made even worse by the Vice-President’s saying at the start of his speech, “And we will back next year”. Now is the time for truly courageous bishops in the US to step forward and to step up to their responsibility and to challenge the vice-president on his reception of Holy Communion, for the salvation of his soul, for the good of the Church and of the world. This will be especially difficult for bishops in the light of the Vice-President being centre stage in last month’s March for Life. But the consequences of not doing so are far too momentous for the bishops to fail to take the necessary action.
Cardinal Burke explains, with clarity and compassion, the kind challenge facing the US bishops today. In Deny Holy Communion? he writes:
“I am deeply aware of the difficulty which is involved in applying the discipline of can. 915.3 I am not surprised by it and do not believe that anyone should be surprised. Surely the discipline has never been easy to apply. But what is at stake for the Church demands the wisdom and courage of the shepherds who will apply it.”4
Notes
- Cf. His Eminence Leo Raymond Cardinal Burke, Deny Holy Communion? (Catholic Action for Faith and Family, 2022). ↩︎
- Ibid, p 62. ↩︎
- Can 915:“Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.” ↩︎
- Cardinal Burke, p 63. ↩︎