The debate over legal abortion has gone global. It has been global for a long time, truth be told, but events in recent weeks have brought the longstanding fact into sharp focus. They have also reframed the debate. Charlie Camosy – a Fordham University theology professor and pro-life advocate – thinks the time is ripe for a new approach – one that frankly recognizes abortion as the quintessence of the “throwaway culture” that has so frequently been the object of Pope Francis’s eloquent denunciations – and he wants Pope Francis to lead the effort himself. “I urge you to bring your forceful defense of prenatal children into a more central place of your pontificate,” Camosy wrote in an open letter published by the Public Discourse heading into the weekend. “It is time to stand up firmly and forcefully for their dignity,” Camosy also wrote, “in a culture that increasingly sees them as disposable things that can be violently discarded.” Pope Francis has never made a secret of his opposition to abortion. He has frequently compared the practice to hiring a hitman, and has made clear that his own opposition to abortion and the Church’s principled stance are both buttressed by faith, though they are rooted in reason, confirmed by science, and vindicated by common sense. Speaking to Italy’s Tg5 earlier this month, Pope Francis said he always poses two questions to people who raise the issue of abortion with him: “Do I have the right to do this?” is the first. “Is it right to cancel a human life to solve a problem, any problem?” is the second. He also reiterated his now-famous “hit man” remark: “Is it okay to hire a sicario to solve a problem?” Deploying an argument with which seasoned pro-life advocates are familiar, Pope Francis said science has an answer to the first question: “It is a human life.” He explained that this fact quickly becomes inescapably evident even to the scientifically untrained. “By the third or at most fourth week of gestation,” Pope Francis said, “all the organs of the new human being are there,” i.e., “in the womb of the mother.” We know – at least broadly and generally, though always without shadow of doubt – what the gestating organism is at any point, starting from conception. In the Tg5 interview, Pope Francis tied the treatment of children and the elderly to the “throwaway culture” against which he has also frequently spoken with powerful eloquence. “Children do not produce and are discarded,” he said. “The elderly do not produce and are discarded,” he continued. “Discard the sick," he offered, "or hasten death when it is terminal.” “Discard,” he said, “so that it is more comfortable for us and does not bring us so many problems,” a prosaic extension of Our Ford’s chilling maxim: “Better to end than mend.” Pope Francis has urged Christians, other believers, and all persons of good will to work together, so that the truth of our common claim regarding human dignity might become transparent in the order of society. Those calls have resonated with elites and committed Christians, alike. His ultimate diagnosis and rationale: not so much – especially with the former. Again, it’s not that Pope Francis can be reasonably accused of soft-pedaling the issue or downplaying the importance of opposing abortion. “Our defense of the innocent unborn,” he wrote in Gaudete et exsultate, “needs to be clear, firm and passionate.” He went on to say: “t stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.” Pope Francis followed that statement (in paragraph 101 of the document) with another (in paragraph 102), to the effect that Christians are called to care for the least of the brethren, and suffering migrants are among those least. The official English translation, at a crucial point, also put the word “grave” in scare-quotes: