The Church is not opposed to the counseling, as you are trying to imply. The opposition is to issuing a certificate that permits an abortion to go forward.
Which pretty much destroys the whole idea.
If a woman wants to have an abortion, she must produce a certificate. To obtain the certificate, she must undergo counseling. The point of the counseling is to dissuade her from obtaining an abortion. So why would a woman who considers an abortion go to a counselor who cannot give her the certificate? It makes no sense!
The woman is already on the path to abortion, and the whole point is to put a counselor on that path, in hope that the counselor can turn her around. What Vatican did, was, in effect, saying that the counselor cannot be put on that woman’s path – the place where (s)he is needed the most – because counselor’s failure to dissuade her would enable an abortion. That’s akin to saying that you cannot preach to sinners, because you cooperate in damnation of those who failed to convert.
The Vatican’s decision has basically separated Catholic counselors from the very women they were supposed to help. Actually no, it was much worse, because removing Catholic counsellors from the market means that woman is more likely to encounter a pro-abortion activist who will basically stamp her paperwork without even talking to her.
How, on Earth, can an abortion provider verify that the woman underwent the required counseling without some kind of cetificate, token, database entry or whatever? It’s impossible, unless they keep a counsellor on payroll… and that’s a very bad idea for obvious reasons.
As usual, blind adherence to the letter of the Cathehism trumps common sense.
