Politiicans and citizens who vote to tolerate abortion are no more guilty of abortion than Jesus is guilty of execution or suicide by choosing to tolerate his sentence and remaining silent and not offering a robust defense when questioned.
If you vote to legalize prostitution, that doesn’t mean you “support prostitution.” It means you believe it is better that it be legalized (on ideological grounds or on practical grounds). Abortion is no different. From a human point of view, it may seem as though a sin involving the loss of life is more grave than a sin involving no loss of life, but Catholic theologians have not agreed with that. St. Thomas Aquinas held the greatest sin was hatred of God.
Article I.—Is it possible for any one to hate God?
R. Hatred is a movement of the appetitive power, which is not moved except by some object apprehended. Now God may be apprehended by man in two ways: in one way in Himself, as He is seen in His Essence; in another way by the effects that He works: since “the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.”1 God in His Essence is Goodness itself, which none can hate, because it is of the nature of good to be loved: and therefore it is impossible for any one seeing God in His Essence to hate Him. Even of the effects that He produces, some there are which can in no way be contrary to the human will: because to see, to live, and to understand, is something desirable and lovely to all; and these are some of the effects wrought by God. Hence God cannot be hated, inasmuch as He is apprehended as the author of these effects. But some effects wrought by God are repugnant to an inordinate will, as the infliction of punishment, and also the prohibition of sins by the divine law; and in consideration of such effects God may be hated by some persons, inasmuch as He is the prohibiter of sins and the inflicter of punishments.
Article II.—Is hatred of God the greatest of sins?
R. The guilt of sin consists in a voluntary turning away from God. In hatred of God this voluntary turning away is involved by the ordinary and essential nature of the act: but in other sins it is contained only derivatively and through the medium of something else. For as the will of itself cleaves to what it loves, so of itself it shrinks back from what it hates. Hence when any one hates God, his will of itself is turned away from Him: but in other sins, for instance, fornication, the will turns not away from God of itself, but by reason of something else, inasmuch as it seeks an inordinate delight, which has annexed to it a turning away from God. But that which is ordinarily and essentially, always goes beyond that which is derivatively. Hence hatred of God is of greater gravity than other sins.
§ 2. Unbelief is not culpable except in so far as it is voluntary. Its voluntariness arises from the unbeliever’s hatred of the truth proposed to him. Hence manifestly the sinfulness of unbelief comes of hatred of God, about whose truth faith is conversant. And therefore as the cause outdoes the effect, so hatred of God is a greater sin than unbelief.
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