It's the canonical crimeofabortion, which Peters said more aptly applies to abortion providers, that would incur automatic excommunication and require a bishop's intervention.
Edward Peters, a canon lawyer at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, said Francis' statement seems to assume that the "sin" ofabortion and the "crime" ofabortion are treated equally under church law.
It has been used successfully in the past in difficult subject areas, such as wildlife crime in South Africa, on issues ofabortion in Catholic countries, and tax evasion in the Netherlands.
Abortion opponents won one recently, when the Supreme Court ruled that a law designed to be used against organised crime could not be used to stop foes ofabortion protesting in front of clinics.