MADRID (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV urged members of the Spanish Parliament on Monday to “safeguard” all human life from conception to its natural end.
During his June 8 remarks to members of the Spanish Parliament, which has passed several radical pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia laws, Pope Leo emphasized that the law must be a safeguard for all and thus that the government must respect human life from conception until natural death. The pontiff further stressed that a society that “casts into the shadows” the unborn, the sick, the elderly, and those who suffer in silence cannot consider itself “fully just,” adding that the defense of human life is not simply a partisan or confessional issue but a “goal of civilization.”
Following his remarks, Leo received a standing ovation from members of Parliament.
“Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?”
Pope Leo XIV offers challenging questions to Spain’s Parliament during his apostolic… pic.twitter.com/Ks5A83OiYK
— Fr Joseph Hudson (@acloudofsaints) June 8, 2026
“(I)t falls to me today to speak a calm and firm word to those who bear the grave responsibility of legally ordering social coexistence. This coexistence can be threatened by the throwaway culture, as Pope Francis so often warned,” Leo said. “In this sense, if life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have? Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?”
“The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization. Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence,” the pontiff continued. “When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile.”
The American pontiff’s message to Parliament comes at a critical time in the once devout Catholic Spain, as its leftist government under Pedro Sánchez is currently considering adopting a constitutional amendment that would embed a so-called “right” to an abortion, the murder of an unborn child. Current Spanish law allows abortion up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy and up to 22 weeks for supposed risks to the mother’s life or “anomalies” of the unborn child.
READ: Spain to consider establishing constitutional ‘right’ to abortion
It’s important to note that abortion is never medically necessary or justifiable.
In recent years, Spain has passed several other radically pro-abortion laws. In 2022, the Spanish Parliament passed a law that eliminated its previous three-day waiting period for obtaining an abortion and even instituted the creation of a public list of pro-life doctors who refuse to kill the unborn.
That same year, the Spanish penal code was amended to criminalize all “pro-life gatherings” near abortuaries, which the bill described as “harassing” the women who go to these facilities to murder their child.
A year prior, in 2021, Spain also legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide. Data released earlier this year revealed that the country experienced an almost 30 percent increase in assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2024 compared with the previous year, with 426 people choosing to end their own lives by assisted suicide or euthanasia, compared to 334 Spaniards who ended their lives in this way in 2023, a 27.54 percent increase from 2023, when 334 people ended their lives in this way.
READ: Euthanasia, assisted suicide deaths in Spain increased 30% from 2023 to 2024