Why Andorra has a bishop for a prince, and what is at stake in its abortion bill
Andorra’s government has sent parliament a bill to remove criminal penalties for women who obtain or request abortions, while retaining prison terms and professional bans for those who perform them. The bill would change a country where abortion is currently prohibited and women could face arrest, although lawmakers say no woman has been jailed; reports say women travel to nearby Catalonia for abortions. Andorra is governed by two co-princes—the bishop of Urgell and the president of France—and laws ordinarily require their signatures to take effect. The bishop is not expected to sign the abortion bill, but Andorra’s constitutional process allows it to take effect with the French co-prince’s signature and an additional countersignature.
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Andorra’s proposal would remove criminal penalties for women who obtain or request abortions while keeping penalties for those who perform them. The bill confronts the country’s unusual system of two co-princes—including the Catholic bishop of Urgell—whose signatures normally enact laws, as well as the government’s aim to pass the measure before elections expected in spring 2027.
Andorra, with a population of about 90,000, is governed by two heads of state: the bishop of Urgell, based across the border in Spain, and the president of France. The arrangement dates to a 1278 settlement between the bishop and the Count of Foix; the count’s role later passed to French monarchs and then French presidents.
The country’s 1993 constitution retained the co-princes as joint and indivisible heads of state. It also recognizes the right to life and says it is fully protected in its different phases. Bishop Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat became co-prince in 2025, succeeding Archbishop Joan-Enric Vives.
Andorra currently prohibits abortion. The government approved its bill on Oct. 28 and sent it to parliament, the Consell General, under an urgent procedure; no vote had been scheduled at the time of the report.
The measure would amend Article 117 of the penal code so that a woman who consents to or requests her own abortion, or helps carry it out, could not be punished. Doctors and others who perform abortions would remain subject to penalties of up to three years in prison and a five-year ban from working in health care.
Women can currently face arrest under the law, though lawmakers say no one has been jailed. Media reports that women seeking abortions travel to nearby Catalonia, Spain.
Andorran laws are ordinarily sanctioned and enacted by both co-princes within eight to 15 days. But the bishop cannot block a measure by himself: if one co-prince cannot sign in time because of “circumstances,” the law can take effect with the other co-prince’s signature and a countersignature from the head of government or the speaker of parliament.
There is a precedent. In 2019, Vives declined to sanction laws concerning assisted reproduction and children’s rights, but both took effect. Andorran media have reported that the government and the Holy See agreed on the abortion bill’s terms and expect the bishop not to sign it.
Head of government Xavier Espot and minister Ladislau Baró met with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Oct. 22, 2025, and again on July 29. Baró described the contacts as “dialogue,” not “negotiation,” and said in November that the government neither had nor expected explicit approval from Rome or the bishop’s seat.
In 2023, Parolin said that defending life at every stage was a fundamental Holy See principle and that changing the penal code raised questions about Andorra’s constitutional system. Earlier reporting said Pope Francis had warned in 2018 that decriminalizing abortion could require the bishop to abdicate; Vives later said he would resign if the French co-prince approved an abortion law.
The proposed change is limited to removing criminal liability for women, while leaving penalties for abortion providers in place. Serrano Pentinat has avoided taking a public position, saying in 2025 that it was not for him to make decisions or speak on the matter, and describing the Church’s existence as “a yes to life.”
The government wants parliament to pass the bill before elections expected in spring 2027. It needs an absolute majority in the 28-member Consell General.
The Catholic women’s group Stella Mons has called for protection of unborn children alongside meaningful support for mothers, saying that “the protection of life and the protection of women are not incompatible objectives.” French President Emmanuel Macron has also voiced support for the debate to advance.
The bishop’s next likely public opportunity to address the issue is his Christmas address. The report notes that the Catholic Church’s Catechism describes the right to life of every innocent human being as a constitutive element of civil society and its laws.
Church-state authority and Catholic moral reasoning in abortion legislation
Catholic reasoning about abortion legislation begins with two related claims: civil authority is limited and exists to serve the common good, but it cannot make the deliberate killing of an innocent person morally right. The Church therefore does not claim that government should enforce every moral teaching or that political decisions belong exclusively to ecclesiastical authority. It does hold that laws should protect basic human rights—including the right to life—and that Catholics should work through public and democratic means to oppose laws that authorize abortion.
The Church and the state have distinct roles. Civil law has a narrower purpose than morality as a whole: it is meant to secure just social coexistence, protect fundamental rights, and promote the common good. It cannot replace personal conscience or legislate every aspect of moral life. At the same time, its limited scope does not mean that law is morally neutral or that a majority vote can make any action just.
The Church’s contribution is to teach and argue about the moral principles that should inform public life; it does not thereby claim the state’s governing authority. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says that public authority should regulate civil law in line with basic moral norms concerning human rights, life, and the family. It also emphasizes that the Church is not seeking to impose a narrow, confessional morality: it presents values it holds to be accessible to human reason and relevant to people of good will.
That distinction matters. The Catholic case against abortion legislation is not simply “the Church commands it.” It is that a law protecting the deliberate destruction of innocent human life fails in its public duty to protect a basic right. Catholic arguments may be informed by faith, but the claim about the equal protection of human life is also presented as a claim of reason and justice.
Catholic teaching holds that direct abortion—abortion intended as an end or chosen as a means—is gravely wrong because it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, quoting Evangelium Vitae, states that this teaching rests on natural law as well as Scripture and Church Tradition, and that no circumstance or law can make an intrinsically wrongful act morally licit.
The legal question follows from that moral judgment. If the unborn child possesses a right to life, the state’s responsibility is not merely to allow individual choices but to protect that right in law. John Paul II identifies the right to life of every innocent human being as the first and fundamental right civil law must recognize and defend. He argues that a law cannot transform an offense against that right into a legitimate individual entitlement simply because a majority supports it.
“First and fundamental among these is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being.”
In this account, a law permitting abortion is not just a failure to enforce a moral ideal. It publicly authorizes an act against the very right the state exists to safeguard. Evangelium Vitae therefore describes such laws as contrary to the common good and lacking authentic moral binding force.
This does not mean that every morally wrong act must be criminalized, or that civil law should try to make citizens virtuous by force. John Paul II recognizes that public authority may sometimes tolerate conduct it ought not approve, where prohibition would cause more serious harm. But he distinguishes toleration from declaring an act a right: the state may face prudential limits in what it can prohibit, yet it may not rightly legitimize direct attacks on fundamental human rights.
For Catholic legislators, the baseline is clear: they must not promote or vote for a law that attacks human life. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith describes this as a grave obligation and applies it to Catholics involved in lawmaking. It also cautions against treating one part of Catholic social teaching as the whole of a politician’s responsibility: the common good must be considered in its fullness, while a Catholic conscience cannot support a political program or law that contradicts fundamental moral principles.
A particular case arises when a more permissive abortion law is already in force, or repeal is not politically possible, and a legislator can vote for a measure that would restrict abortions and reduce harm. John Paul II says that an elected official who is firmly known to oppose abortion may licitly support such a measure when it limits the damage done by the existing law. The moral reasoning is that the vote does not endorse abortion; it seeks a real reduction of the injustice when complete reversal cannot be achieved.
That permission is carefully limited. It does not license a legislator to promote abortion as a good, or to support a permissive law on the theory that a personally opposed politician may publicly favor what he privately rejects. The distinction is between supporting a law that expands or legitimizes abortion and supporting a genuinely restrictive measure that reduces the harm of an unjust legal situation.
For voters, the supplied texts reject the idea that Catholics may simply set aside a fundamental moral issue when assessing political choices. They also reject the opposite simplification that commitment to one social issue exhausts one’s responsibility for the common good. Catholic political judgment should consider the full moral and social picture, without treating support for abortion as an ordinary policy preference that can be detached from the right to life.
Catholics ordinarily have duties toward legitimate public authority. But those duties do not require obedience to a law or command that contradicts divine and moral law. Evangelium Vitae says there is no obligation in conscience to obey laws legitimizing abortion and calls Catholics to oppose them through conscientious objection. It adds that it is never licit to vote for such a law or take part in a campaign in its favor.
This teaching should not be confused with a general license to disregard any law a person dislikes. Its focus is a serious conflict with the moral law and the protection of innocent life. The appropriate response named in the text is conscientious objection and opposition to unjust legislation; the excerpt does not provide a comprehensive account of every possible form of civil disobedience or the legal consequences of particular acts.
The moral and legal distinction between permitting and requiring abortion is also important. A law may allow abortion without ordering every person to obtain one, but Catholic teaching still judges the law unjust because it grants legal protection to an act that violates the unborn child’s right to life. That distinction helps explain why the response is not only personal refusal to participate: it also includes seeking to change the law and resisting efforts to promote it.
Catholic reasoning about abortion legislation is thus neither a claim that church authorities should govern the state nor a claim that public law should enforce every moral norm. It is an argument about the proper limits and purpose of civil authority: the state must protect fundamental rights, and legal permission cannot make the direct killing of an innocent person just. The Church teaches this as a moral judgment, calls lawmakers and citizens to defend life through democratic participation, and recognizes limited prudential action to reduce harm when full repeal is not attainable.