Canon law mentions that anyone who procures an abortion is automatically excommunicated. (can. #1397 iirc)
The pope doesn’t need to formally announce anything. It’s already done.
Ignorance of the law (and rejection of infallible moral teaching)** is no excuse**.
I’m not sure if that last bolded part is correct.
While in the United States’ civil (meaning secular) law, ignorance of the law is not an excuse (though I think it should be in some ways), in ecclesiastical law, ignorance of the law
can be an excuse. Here are two canons that seem relevant, especially the second one.
*
Can. 1323 No one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law or precept:
1° has not completed the sixteenth year of age;
**2° was, without fault, ignorant of violating the law or precept; inadvertence and error are equivalent to ignorance **
3° acted under physical force, or under the impetus of a chanceoccurrence which the person could not foresee or if foreseen could not avoid;
4° acted under the compulsion of grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience, unless, however, the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls;
5° acted, within the limits of due moderation, in lawful self-defence or defence of another against an unjust aggressor;
6° lacked the use of reason, without prejudice to the provisions of cann. 1324, §1, n. 2 and 1325;
7° thought, through no personal fault, that some one of the circumstances existed which are mentioned in nn. 4 or 5.*
Can. 1324 §1 The perpretrator of a violation is not exempted from penalty, but the penalty prescribed in the law or precept must be diminished, or a penance substituted in its place, if the offence was committed by:
1° one who had only an imperfect use of reason;
2° one who was lacking the use of reason because of culpable drunkenness or other mental disturbance of a similar kind;
3° one who acted in the heat of passion which, while serious, nevertheless did not precede or hinder all mental deliberation and consent of the will, provided that the passion itself had not been deliberately stimulated or nourished
4° a minor who has completed the sixteenth year of age;
5° one who was compelled by grave fear, even if only relative, or byreason of necessity or grave inconvenience, if the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls;
6° one who acted in lawful self-defence or defence of another against an unjust aggressor, but did not observe due moderation;
7° one who acted against another person who was gravely and unjustly provocative;
8° one who erroneously, but culpably, thought that some one of the circumstances existed which are mentioned in Can. 1323, nn. 4 or 5;
9° one who through no personal fault was unaware that a penalty was attached to the law or precept;
10° one who acted without full imputability, provided it remained grave.
§2 A judge can do the same if there is any other circumstance present which would reduce the gravity of the offence.
§3 In the circumstances mentioned in §1, the offender is not bound by a latae sententiae penalty.
intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P4U.HTM
So it appears that those who procure abortions but are through no personal fault unaware of the penalty for them would not incur the “latae sententiae” excommunication penalty (“latae sententiae” is the original Latin that some people paraphrase as “automatic”)
).
?