I am Catholic and Pro-Choice. Now—read on.

Texas State Rep. James Talarico recently argued on The Joe Rogan Experience that the Bible offers “no… basis” for Christians to oppose abortion, even suggesting that the Virgin Mary’s role in the Incarnation supports a “pro-choice” view. Given Joe Rogan’s outsized influence on culture, we need to deal with this absolute nonsense head on from this purported “Pastor.”

In Talarico’s words: “Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent… The angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do… So, to me, that is an affirmation… that creation has to be done with consent… You cannot force someone to create… It has to be done with freedom.”

He went on to declare the following: “This idea that to be a Christian that you have to be… anti-Abortion there really is no historical, theological or Biblical basis for that opinion.”

Challenge made. Challenge accepted. Let’s commence our educating of this “Pastor”, shall we?

I have some news for all you “Progressive” Christians out there. Abortion and Christianity are absolutely incompatible. There is no middle ground. There is no compromise and no grey areas. And Mr. Rogan, no, “Pastor” Talrico is not saying anything new and profound. Gnostics have been around for 1900 years. Now, they just use TikTok and have nicer suits and more expensive haircuts.

But, the conclusion is simple. Every Catholic is pro-Choice. That’s what makes us Catholic. The freedom to choose good v. evil. We strive to always choose the good. And, in questions such as these, the choice is quite simple…

But—Progressive Christians will have to make their choice. You either choose Abortion or you choose the faith. You can’t have both. It’s just that simple. Stop trying to convince those of us who have made our choice that somehow we just “don’t get it.” We actually do. And, no amount of attempted theological contortions or gymnastics are going to change the Truth here.

Mary’s Fiat vs. The Modern “Pro-Choice” Narrative

At the Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38), the Virgin Mary freely consented to become the mother of the Savior. The angel Gabriel announced God’s plan, and Mary responded, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38, D-R) This humble “fiat” (Latin for “let it be done”) reveals Mary’s obedience of faith – she embraced God’s will, cooperating freely in the divine plan of salvation. Talarico seizes on Mary’s consent to argue that God “asks for Mary’s consent” and therefore affirms a general principle that “creation has to be done with consent”, which he then applies to a woman’s decision whether to carry a pregnancy.

Let’s break this down so even the “Pastor” can understand this. First: God doesn’t need permission to create. Creation is ex nihilo (out of nothing) and entirely the work of the Divine Will. To suggest that God needed Mary’s consent in order to carry out the Incarnation is to subordinate omnipotent God to the will of a creature, which borders on theological blasphemy.

God did not ask permission to act—He invited cooperation. There is a profound difference between invitation to participation and request for permission.

What “Pastor” Talrico [and all those who individually attempt to weaponize Scripture) does is imply that Mary had the right to say no, and therefore, by extension, supporting the idea that women must have the freedom to choose abortion. This interpretation of the Annunciation to justify a pro-choice narrative is theologically—and morally—bankrupt.

The exchange between Gabriel and Mary has nothing to do with creation. It has to do with faith and obedience. Let’s examine, shall we? Turning to Luke 1:28-38, Gabriel enters and greets Mary:

______________

And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women

Et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit : Ave gratia plena : Dominus tecum : benedicta tu in mulieribus

He then tells her what will happen. There are no questions. No, “that ok with you?” Gabriel states:

—Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.
Ecce concipies in utero, et paries filium, et vocabis nomen ejus Jesum :

—He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.
hic erit magnus, et Filius Altissimi vocabitur, et dabit illi Dominus Deus sedem David patris ejus : et regnabit in domo Jacob in aeternum,

—And of his kingdom there shall be no end.
et regni ejus non erit finis.

Mary then responds:

—And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Dixit autem Maria : Ecce ancilla Domini : fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.

____________

This is not a declaration of sovereign bodily autonomy, but of obedient humility. She identifies herself as the “handmaid” (Greek: δούλη, doulē, meaning female slave or servant)—one who belongs to the Lord. To attempt to turn this into some feminist libertarian assertion of bodily autonomy is to pervert the Gospel. Mary’s assent was a cooperation with grace through faith to the supernatural event transpiring.

Crucially, Catholic theology has always held that God is the ultimate author of life. Mary’s consent was indeed asked, not because God needed permission in a human sense, but because He willed to redeem humanity with our free assent; Mary’s “Yes” exemplifies perfect obedience, not self-determination apart from God. As many commentators observe [including myself], the angel does not “ask permission” so much as announce God’s plan, to which Mary humbly submits.

Further—”Pastor” Talrico attempts to suggest a bridge between the single, once in a humanity salvivic event—i.e., the Incarnation—to every pregnancy. The purpose, of course, is to conflate the metaphysical with the moral. What “Pastor” Talarico attempts to suggest is Mary had the “possibility” to say no [true] and that made such a potential choice moral [untrue]. And, from there, he attempts to suggest that every pregnancy involves this same “consent” all the way until its end. And, if the consent changes, then the metaphysical choice to end it has no moral consequence. Mary’s pregnancy was quite unique in history and she understood this when she said: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” To equate this to the regret suffered following a one-night stand is blasphemous in its own right but what else might one expect from a “Progressive” wanna-be Protestant theologian?

The Consistent Historical, Theological and Biblical Witness Against Abortion

Far from being unsupported in the Bible, the pro-life position permeates both Scripture and the unanimous teaching of the early Church. The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) applies to all innocent life; the Bible consistently portrays children – including the unborn – as blessings known to God. For instance, God tells Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee” (Jeremiah 1:5, D-R). The psalmist likewise proclaims that God knit him together in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139). These passages affirm that human life, from its earliest stages, is under the care and knowledge of God. Nothing in Scripture suggests that taking this life is a moral option. On the contrary, the Bible condemns the shedding of innocent blood: “Hands that shed innocent blood” are listed among the seven things the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:16–17). What blood could be more innocent than that of a child in the womb?

It is true that the word “abortion” does not explicitly appear in the Bible. But from the earliest post-biblical documents, the Christian community explicitly forbade abortion as gravely sinful. The Didache, a first-century catechism likely as old as some New Testament writings, directly commands: “You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2.2). Similarly, the Letter of Barnabas (c. 74 A.D.) teaches: “Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born”. The witness only continues from there. Early Church Fathers and councils universally regarded abortion as murder or an atrocity: e.g., St. Athenagoras in 177 A.D. called abortion nothing less than “murder”, and St. Basil in the 4th century ruled that “Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not”. Never did any orthodox Christian authority suggest that abortion might be a “right” or a morally neutral choice. On the contrary, it was condemned with the same severity as infanticide – because in Christian anthropology, the unborn child is already a human being loved by God.

This unbroken tradition refutes Talarico’s claim that there is “no set Christian orthodoxy” on abortion. The orthodoxy is clear and consistent: abortion is a grave evil. As early as the Apostolic Age, the Church taught that abortion is incompatible with the Way of Christ. Talarico’s position is not new orthodoxy but ancient heresy in new garb, disturbingly akin to the Gnostic and pagan practices the Church always fought against. It is telling that Talarico, in asserting Biblical support for abortion, misinterprets even the creation account – claiming that because Genesis describes God breathing life into Adam (Gen 2:7), “life starts when you take your first breath”. This rigid literalism twists Scripture and ignores its genres. (As critics pointed out, unborn babies do “breathe” via the umbilical cord, and Eve was never described as receiving God’s breath – yet she was fully alive.) Such arguments only underscore that the pro-choice reading of Scripture is forced and absolutely ahistorical. By contrast, the pro-life understanding flows naturally from the Bible’s affirmation of God as author of life and the prohibition of murdering the innocent.

Magisterial Teaching: Abortion as Intrinsically Evil and Unchangeable Truth

In addition to Scripture and early tradition, the Catholic Magisterium (teaching authority) has definitively pronounced on abortion. The Church’s teaching has not “evolved” to accept abortion – in fact it cannot, for it is rooted in unchanging truth. St. John Paul II, in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, solemnly confirmed: “By the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors… I declare that direct 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. …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….”. The pope emphasized that this teaching “is unchanged and unchangeable”. In other words, no modern reinterpretation, no shifting cultural norm, can ever legitimize the direct killing of a preborn child. Any attempt to do so places one outside the bounds of orthodox Christian morality.

Long before John Paul II, Pope Pius XI taught the same in Casti Connubii (1930). Writing against early 20th-century legalizations of contraception and abortion, Pius XI condemned the argument that one might kill an unborn child to protect other goods (the mother’s life, “social” benefits, etc.). Such reasoning he called “unthinkable and contrary to the divine precept” that we must never do evil that good may come of it. He warned civil authorities of their duty to defend the helpless unborn: “Those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among them we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother’s womb. And if the public magistrates… by their laws and ordinances betray them to death, let them remember that God is the judge and avenger of innocent blood that cries from earth to Heaven.” Such language leaves no ambiguity: to permit or promote abortion, even via legislation, is to betray a sacred duty and to invite divine judgment.

These papal teachings are not isolated remarks; they reflect the constant doctrine of the Church. The Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes, reiterated that “from the moment of conception life must be guarded with the greatest care,” such that “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”¹ The Church’s stance is built on both faith and reason: natural law, accessible to all through human reason, confirms that innocent human life possesses inviolable dignity. Abortion, in the words of Pope St. Paul VI, is “a particularly grave moral disorder” as it is the direct killing of the most defenseless – a crime “against God and man himself.”

It is real simple. You cannot be “pro-choice” on abortion and remain a faithful Catholic (or indeed a faithful Christian). Full stop. And, yes, I’m looking at you Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsome, Dick Durbin and Andrew Cuomo. That includes purported the idea that Christianity could countenance the willful destruction of unborn children is a grotesque product of modern relativism, not an authentic development of doctrine. It stands condemned by the highest Church authorities, in continuity with Scripture and tradition. Talarico’s claim that many Christians “don’t subscribe” to pro-life positions may sadly be true sociologically – but such Christians hold their stance in dissent from the historic and biblical faith. Numbers do not create truth; indeed, the Church has often found herself a sign of contradiction against popular falsehood. As Pope Benedict XVI remarked, truth is not determined by majority vote. The truth about the evil of abortion is not up for renegotiation by progressive theologians or politicians.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Abortion and the Natural Law

No serious rebuttal of Talarico’s position would be complete without addressing St. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor of the Church, whom some pro-choice advocates erroneously invoke. It is true that Aquinas speculated, following Aristotle’s biology, that the spiritual soul might be infused some weeks after conception (40 days for males, 80 for females). However, Aquinas never concluded that abortion was therefore permissible in early pregnancy. On the contrary, he taught that even before “ensoulment,” abortion is a grave sin against natural law – a form of wrongful killing (if not formally homicide, due to the timing) and an affront to the potential personhood developing in the womb. According to Aquinas, moral law prohibits abortion at any stage; the degree of punishment or classification of the sin might vary (homicide vs. a form of contraception), but the sinfulness was unequivocal. The angelic doctor wrote: “{Abortion} is contrary to natural justice. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing… one who will be a man is already one in design” (see Summa contra Gentiles and Apologia of Tertullian, which Aquinas cites). He considered it gravely unjust to destroy the embryo even if one mistakenly thought the rational soul was not yet present.

Furthermore, Aquinas is the intellectual source for the principle of double effect, a cornerstone of Catholic moral reasoning often distorted in abortion debates. The principle of double effect recognizes that one may perform a legitimate act that has two effects – one intended and good, and another unintended and harmful – only if there is no other way to achieve the good, and the bad effect is not directly willed. The classic application is in cases where a pregnant mother’s life is in grave danger. Catholic ethics permits medical treatments or surgeries to save the mother, even if these indirectly result in the death of the unborn child (for example, treating an ectopic pregnancy or an aggressive uterine cancer) – but never is it permitted to directly and intentionally kill the child, even to save the mother. As Pope Pius XII clarified to physicians: “No man, no human authority, no science… can offer a valid juridical title to a direct, deliberate disposal of an innocent human life – that is, a disposal that aims at its destruction, whether as an end or as a means to another end… For example, to save the life of the mother is a very noble end; but the direct killing of the child as a means to that end is not lawful.” This reiterates Aquinas’s own conclusion that we must never do evil for a good purpose (in Latin, non faciendo malum ut eveniat bonum). The “double effect” allowance is not a loophole for abortion; it is a compassionate application of moral law that still absolutely forbids intentional abortion. Tragically, figures like Talarico invert this principle – justifying direct evil in the name of autonomy or even compassion – whereas Aquinas and the Church resolutely maintain that some acts (like murder of the innocent) are intrinsically evil, never permissible.

To sum up Aquinas’s stance: even without modern embryology, he condemned abortion as a violation of natural and divine law. Today’s science, of course, has confirmed that a new, genetically distinct human organism exists from conception. Had Aquinas known what we know now – that the embryo is a living human individual from day one – he would doubtless have agreed that aborting such life at any stage is true homicide. But even with his medieval understanding, he called abortion “grave wrongdoing.” It is therefore intellectually dishonest when proponents of “pro-choice Christianity” cite Aquinas or Augustine on delayed ensoulment as if it validates abortion. Both Doctors still regarded abortion as gravely sinful; they differed only on when it became legally “homicide.” The moral truth – that the act is evil – was never in doubt. And importantly, the Church never taught Aquinas’s ensoulment theory as doctrine; it was a theological opinion superseded by later insight and always supplanted by the clear doctrine that abortion is impermissible at any stage. St. Thomas, champion of faith and reason, would surely reject the incoherent, “individualistic” theology of someone like Talarico, whose arguments betray more of the spirit of the age than the mind of Christ.

Modernist Interpretation and the “Dictatorship” of Individualism

James Talarico identifies as a “progressive Christian.” His approach – reinterpreting or discarding any part of historic Christianity that conflicts with modern secular values – is a textbook case of Modernism in the theological sense. Modernism, which St. Pius X famously dubbed “the synthesis of all heresies”, seeks to subject eternal truths to the judgment of individual experience and contemporary ideology. Over the past 500 years – essentially since the Protestant Reformation splintered Christendom – the trend in many circles has been toward private interpretation of Scripture and doctrine. Once the principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) and individual judgment took hold, divorced from the unifying authority of the Church, it opened the door to countless contradictory interpretations – and to the erosion of doctrinal certainty. Talarico’s claims about Mary and abortion are a fruit of this long trajectory of theological decay, wherein personal or political preferences trump the consistent teachings handed down through the ages.

Indeed, what Talarico espouses is not Christianity as historically understood, but a modernist-humanist ideology draped in Christian language. It treats the Bible as malleable and doctrine as vote-dependent. Such a mindset is steeped in the “individualistic interpretation” that has proliferated in the wake of the Reformation and Enlightenment, whereby each person feels entitled to decide for themselves what Christianity means – even if that means contradicting 2,000 years of teaching. The result is that “everyone does what is right in his own eyes” (cf. Judg. 21:25) and labels it ‘Christian.’ This is precisely how we arrive at the absurd position of calling the Bible “pro-abortion” and Mary a model for “choice” in the abortion context.

Catholicism, by contrast, insists that Truth is not determined by personal preference or majority vote; it is given by God. The Church’s role is to safeguard and transmit that truth, not reinvent it to suit the times. In Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II warned against the “[profound] crisis of truth in our age,” especially in morality, where some deny the existence of absolute truths. The abandonment of objective truth leads to what his successor Benedict XVI termed a “dictatorship of relativism,” wherein commitment to moral truth is replaced by a false ‘tolerance’ that approves anything – except firm adherence to classical Christianity. Talarico’s left-leaning reinterpretation of Christianity – approving abortion and even redefining core tenets like the uniqueness of Christ’s Incarnation – exemplifies this relativism. It is a Christianity emptied of the Cross, refashioned to avoid offending secular sensibilities.

Yet Christ promised that “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). True freedom is found in accepting the truth revealed by God, not constructing a personalized “truth.” The modernist tendency to treat conscience as a license to invent moral truth was explicitly rejected in Catholic teaching. A well-formed conscience submits to the truth; it does not create truth. As G.K. Chesterton quipped, “We don’t need a Church that will move with the world, but a Church that will move the world.” The Church can only move the world if she remains anchored to the immutable truths of the faith, among which is the God-given dignity of every human life.

Thus, the perversion of theology that makes abortion into a “Christian” value is the product of centuries of fracture from authoritative truth. It flows from what happens when each individual or denomination picks and chooses doctrines – a process that began in earnest 500 years ago and has reached its logical endpoint today in “cafeteria Christianity.” The antidote, from a Catholic view, is a return to fidelity: fidelity to Scripture rightly interpreted, to apostolic Tradition, and to the Magisterium that Christ established to guide His followers in truth (1 Tim 3:15). Without this anchor, one is “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14) – or every wind of politics.

Talarico’s arguments reveal him not as a guardian of Christian truth but as a follower of the zeitgeist, baptizing secular progressive ideas in religious language. In doing so, he aligns not with the saints and doctors of the Church, but with those whom St. Paul warned against – teachers who “tickle itching ears” and “turn away from listening to the truth to wander into myths” (2 Tim 4:3–4). Supporting abortion as a “Christian” position is exactly such a myth, completely alien to the Christian ethos of self-giving love and protection of the defenseless.

Choosing Christ vs. Being “Pro-Choice”: No Neutrality in the Face of Evil

A final point concerns the very notion of “choice”. Talarico and others use the term “pro-choice” to signify support for legal abortion – implying that what is at stake is simply individual freedom. But from a Christian standpoint, how one uses freedom is the whole difference between virtue and sin, between life and death. Christ did not come to affirm all choices, but to call us to choose rightly: to choose the good and reject evil. In the Gospel, Jesus pointedly says, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword” (Matthew 10:34, D-R). This startling statement underscores that the message of Christ compels a choice – a separation “like a sword” cutting between those who follow God’s way and those who oppose it. True, Jesus is the Prince of Peace in one sense; but He brings not a false peace of compromise with evil, rather a call to decision that will even divide families (Matt 10:35–36).

In other words, neutrality in the face of moral truth is not an option for a disciple of Christ. Our Lord also taught, “He that is not with me, is against me” (Matt 12:30, D-R) and “You cannot serve two masters” (Matt 6:24). Being Catholic is indeed all about choice – for Christ, for truth, for life – and against whatever contradicts these. To style oneself “pro-choice” in the context of abortion is, in effect, to choose not to stand unequivocally for the good, and thus to stand against it. The revered poet Dante Alighieri illustrated this reality in the Inferno. In the vestibule of Hell, Dante places the “opportunists,” those souls who in life refused to choose between good and evil, caring only for themselves. Their punishment is exquisitely fitting: “They are neither in Hell nor out of it… eternally unclassified, they race round and round pursuing a wavering blank banner… stung by wasps and hornets”, their blood eaten by worms. Dante’s imagery drives home a Christian moral truth – the worst souls were not those who passionately chose evil, but those who stood for nothing. They are utterly lost, owning no principle but self-interest, and even Hell spurns them.

Being “pro-choice” in the sense of indifferentism or moral neutrality is exactly the sort of failure Dante portrays. It is a refusal to fight under the banner of the Good. Today, “pro-choice” advocacy is often a polite masquerade for the choice of death over life, of self-will over love. To be a Christian is to have the courage to declare that some choices are wrong – gravely wrong – and must not be enabled. The modern world may deride this as “intolerant,” or “lacking compassion” but Christ did not call us to a tepid tolerance; He called us to charity in truth. And real charity toward both mother and child never involves supporting the killing of the innocent. The authentic “choice” Catholics uphold is the choice for life: “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live,” says God in Scripture (Deuteronomy 30:19). To be “pro-choice” when the choice in question is an intrinsically evil act is to side with death.

In the end, a Catholic must choose in the face of great moral questions, and choose unequivocally. Abortion is not one issue among many where diverse opinions can be entertained; it is a defining issue of basic justice – literally a matter of life or death for millions of innocents. As with the grave evils of prior ages (slavery, for example), to remain neutral or ambivalent is to acquiesce to the injustice. Talarico’s assertion that one can love Judas and love enemies is true in the sense of personal charity, but utterly false if it leads to loving the* evil they do* or remaining silent about it. Loving the sinner does not mean approving the sin. One can and must will the good (and repentance) of even an abortionist or a politician who promotes abortion; but love also demands witnessing to the truth and opposing the evil itself. Christ’s command to “love your enemies” (Matt 5:44) never meant to rubber-stamp your enemies’ sins as acceptable. Yet Talarico’s “progressive Christianity” blurs this distinction, effectively baptizing the world’s values and calling it “love.” In reality, it is not love but cowardice: an unwillingness to bear the “sword” of division that true fidelity sometimes brings (cf. Matt 10:34).

Conclusion

Talarico’s arguments are not courageous or cutting-edge; they are tragically aligned with the spirit of the age – a secular, individualistic ethos that has infiltrated some corners of Protestant and even Catholic thought over 500 years of doctrinal decay outside the Magisterium. It is an ethos that elevates personal choice above objective truth, and temporary political trends above perennial moral law. Such an approach was rightly condemned by Pope St. Pius X and others as modernism, the fateful arrogance that truth can be remade to suit ourselves. But Christianity calls us not to conform truth to ourselves, but to conform ourselves to the Truth – Jesus Christ, “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). And Christ’s teaching, through His Church, on the value of every human life will never change.

Ultimately, one must choose whom to serve. The Catholic believer is called to choose loyalty to Christ and the “least of these” (Matt 25:40), including the unborn, even if it brings division (the sword of Matt 10:34) or the scorn of the world. “Progressive” Christianity like Talarico’s seeks a comfortable peace with the world, but in doing so it betrays the innocent blood that cries to heaven. This is not a path of true Christian love or justice, but a betrayal of both. As Scripture says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).

In refuting James Talarico’s position, we reaffirm a truth that is as central to Christian ethics as ever: to intentionally kill an unborn child is grievously wrong, and no faithful Christian can support it. To claim otherwise is to abandon the clear teachings of Christianity for a “different gospel” (Gal 1:6–8) more palatable to modern secularism. May we instead have the courage of Mary – not in a misused sense of asserting self-will, but in her true spirit of fiat, saying Yes to God’s gift of life and No to anything that violates it. In doing so we stand with the countless saints, scholars, and faithful who for two millennia have upheld the Gospel of Life, against which not even the gates of hell – nor the fashions of any age – will prevail.