Andorran minister says abortion will be decriminalized before next election
Andorran Minister Ladislau Baró announced the abortion decriminalization bill will be approved before next year's parliamentary elections, though Vatican negotiations may delay it. The principality’s unique political system—co‑princes the French president and the Bishop of Urgell—requires careful handling of laws that conflict with Catholic teaching. The Vatican has signaled tacit acceptance of the plan, with the Bishop of Urgell expected to be exempted from formally signing the legislation. Previous talks between Andorran officials and the Holy See, including meetings with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, aimed to reach a compromise on abortion policy.
5 months ago
Andorra’s government says it aims to decriminalize abortion before next year’s parliamentary election, but the bill’s timing depends on negotiations with the Holy See over how to proceed without disrupting the country’s unusual state institutions. The proposed change would remove criminal penalties for women who have abortions and professional sanctions for medical staff, but would not authorize abortions to be performed in Andorra.
Institutional Relations Minister Ladislau Baró said on June 1 that the bill’s technical and philosophical provisions were complete. He said the government was “very close” to a compromise, while acknowledging that negotiations with the Vatican could delay its introduction.
Baró said the legislative decision belongs to Andorra’s parliament, the Consell General, rather than the Holy See. The government, he said, must assess whether the text meets its aims before presenting it; another bill that would fund travel abroad for abortions, while keeping the domestic ban on performing them, has not featured in recent discussions.
Andorra has two co-princes as heads of state: the French president and the Bishop of Urgell. Only one co-prince needs to sign a law, and the French president usually signs contentious measures, including laws on civil unions and assisted reproduction.
The government has sought at least tacit Church acceptance of abortion decriminalization, while exploring a way for the bishop to avoid formally sanctioning the measure. The article reports that negotiations with the Vatican have been under way for several years; in 2025, Prime Minister Xavier Espot said the issue had been discussed discreetly with the Holy See.
The issue resurfaced after French President Emmanuel Macron, an Andorran co-prince, visited in April and said many Andorrans were calling for decriminalization. Espot supported moving ahead, describing the approach as one requiring “realism,” “prudence” and “ambition,” but did not give a timetable at the time.
Bishop Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat, in his first public appearance as Bishop of Urgell, called for dialogue and support for women facing difficult circumstances. His predecessor, Joan-Enric Vives, had opposed signing legislation that conflicted with Catholic teaching and had threatened to abdicate if abortion were legalized.
Earlier reports said the Vatican had quietly approved a decriminalization plan in 2024, but public discussion prompted opposition among Catholics in Andorra and Spain, and the government retreated from its plans as the Church took a firmer position.
Catholic moral theology and civil law on abortion decriminalization
Catholic moral theology distinguishes the moral status of abortion from the civil law’s choice of penalties. The Church teaches that direct abortion—the deliberate killing of an unborn child as an end or a means—is gravely wrong and cannot be made morally permissible by circumstances or legislation. Civil law, however, does not punish every moral fault. That distinction can explain why a legislature might refrain from imposing some penalties; it does not make abortion morally acceptable or remove the state’s responsibility to protect unborn life.
The Catholic judgment is not based simply on religious affiliation or on whether abortion is popular or legal. The Church teaches that the unborn child has a right to life and physical integrity from conception, and that direct abortion is a grave moral disorder because it deliberately kills an innocent human being. The 2009 clarification, citing Evangelium Vitae, says that no circumstance, purpose, or law can make such an act morally licit. It also distinguishes direct abortion from medical treatment directed at the mother’s health that is not itself an abortion, even if the child’s death is an unintended, collateral consequence.
This distinction matters in public debate. A law that declines to punish abortion does not change the Church’s moral judgment about the act. Conversely, a law’s prohibition does not by itself ensure that every individual understands or follows the moral norm. Civil law and moral theology concern related but different questions: what acts are right or wrong, and what conduct public authority should prohibit or penalize.
“Decriminalization” is not a single legal arrangement. Depending on a jurisdiction, it might mean removing criminal penalties for the woman, removing penalties for providers, allowing abortion under defined conditions, or ending criminal enforcement while leaving other regulations in place. It may also be described as a measure to reduce punishment without affirming abortion as a right. The supplied Catholic texts do not analyze any particular country’s statute, so the precise legal judgment depends on what a proposed law actually changes.
The Church’s 1974 declaration recognizes that civil law cannot be expected to regulate the whole field of morality or punish every fault. It may sometimes tolerate what it calls a lesser evil to avoid a greater one. But the same declaration warns that a change in abortion law can be understood publicly not merely as a decision against punishment, but as an authorization or a sign that the state no longer regards abortion as an offense against human life.
That warning is central to the Catholic analysis: toleration in law is not the same as moral approval, but legal toleration can communicate approval or weaken the law’s protection of life. Whether a particular measure is only a limited decision about penalties, or in practice gives abortion legal recognition and protection, cannot be determined from the word “decriminalization” alone.
The Church does not treat the state as morally neutral about every act. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II argues that civil authority should protect the fundamental right to life and that laws authorizing direct abortion deny equal legal protection to the unborn. He describes such laws as contrary to the common good and lacking authentic moral juridical validity.
The 2009 clarification, quoting Donum Vitae, is more specific about legal protection: it says civil legislation should protect every human being’s right to life from conception and provide “appropriate penal sanctions” for deliberate violations of the unborn child’s rights. This means the Church’s teaching is not simply that abortion is wrong privately while the state may treat it as morally indifferent. It assigns public authority a responsibility to defend vulnerable human life through law.
At the same time, the 1974 declaration’s recognition that civil law cannot punish every fault cautions against assuming that every failure to impose a penalty is equivalent in every respect to endorsing the act. The texts together establish both the limits of civil law and a specific duty to protect unborn life; they do not provide a detailed formula for the penalties, enforcement system, or legal drafting appropriate in every society.
The 1974 declaration states that one may not support a law that admits in principle the moral liceity of abortion, nor collaborate in its application. In practical terms, a Catholic evaluating a proposal should ask not just whether it removes a criminal penalty, but whether it recognizes abortion as a right, authorizes the procedure, protects its provision, withdraws legal protection from unborn children, or instead makes a narrower change in enforcement. The legal text and likely effects matter.
This does not mean that every bill described as a compromise or harm-reduction measure is automatically equivalent in its moral object. But neither does the language of “tolerance,” “privacy,” or “lesser evil” settle the question: the Church’s 1974 declaration specifically treats those arguments as insufficient on their own and warns that withdrawing penalties may be taken as authorization. The supplied texts do not resolve every prudential question about a particular bill, such as whether a specific amendment would reduce harm or how a legislator should assess competing provisions. That requires examination of the bill’s actual legal effects.
A concise way to state the Catholic position is:
So, in Catholic moral theology, decriminalization can describe a civil-law decision not to punish, but it cannot make abortion morally permissible. The deeper concern is whether the law’s change merely limits punishment or instead withdraws the unborn child’s protection and presents abortion as an authorized choice.