Abortion
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72
- Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
- You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76
What the Catechism claims about the conceptum is quite clear. But is this de fide? Or a theological opinion presented in authoritative trappings? I have asked whether the Church has infallibly taught that human life begins at conception (with "human" being understood univocally, not equivocally). It seems that the Feast of the Annunciation also celebrates the conception of Christ, and the humanity of Christ at conception is affirmed as a part of Sacred Tradition. But is this sufficient evidence that the Church has always taught that all concepta are human beings or persons?
Some claim that we have unambiguous evidence that the conceptum is human; I will have to address this question in a later post, having already done so in some notes. As far as I know, nothing the Church has proclaimed in recent years contradicts the teaching of the Council of Vienne, which defined the soul as the substantial form of the body. It seems impossible that the Church could define the formal cause as something else, such as DNA. The question a Catholic physicist would ask, then, is whether we can know (with certainty) that the rational soul is infused at conception. If the activities of the conceptum can also explained by an animal soul, then it would seem that we cannot know with certainty that the conceptum is human, though we may believe it with the certitude of Faith, if this has been revealed by God.
11 comments:
There are many lies that the Church never had a consistent teaching on abortion, but the fact is that She has been very consistent for over two thousand years. Now modern science can determine exactly whether beating or killing a woman destroys two human lives or one.
"Now modern science can determine exactly whether beating or killing a woman destroys two human lives or one."
I don't think it can, because it is unable to determine the time of ensoulment (the infusion of the rational soul). Human can only be used analogically and not univocally. The prohibition of abortion has been constant, and this teaching was never dependent upon an answer to the question of ensoulment.
So why in this case is science unable to determine at least the existence of the formal cause (the human soul) of a human body when in other cases, such as when studying a water molecule, it might be able or even should so as to avoid the reductionism you discussed in this post?
The absence of any indication of rational activity.
So science cannot determine "any indication of rational activity"? If it can, at what point of human development could it?
We can make a judgment that the organs needed for normal (i.e. natural) rational activity are present. Whether we can judge that a fetus is actually exercising rational activity at that point... that may be more difficult.
Those organs are not present at conception, and so there is no capacity for natural rational activity. All of the activities of the conceptum at that point can be explained by the presence of an "vegetative" soul. (The old distinction between vegetative, animal, and rational souls can be modified so that the power of development, which was unknown to Aristotle and Aquinas, would be included with the vegetative soul.) Our knowledge of development would lead us to modify Aquinas's arguments, but they wouldn't negate them completely.
St. Thomas argues against "delayed hominization," which seems to be what you think by saying a human first exists with sensitive or vegetative souls before acquiring a rational soul, in De potentia, q. 3 a. 9 ad 9 (Reply to the Ninth Objection).
Reading the link you provided, I find this to be Aquinas's opinion?
We must therefore say differently that from the moment of its severance the semen contains not a soul but a soul power: and this power is based on the spirit contained in the semen which by nature is spumy and consequently contains corporeal spirit. Now this spirit acts by disposing matter and forming it for the reception of the soul. And we must observe a difference between the process of generation in men and animals and in air or water. The generation of air is simple, since therein only two substantial forms appear, one that is voided and one that is induced, and all this takes place together in one instant, so that the form of water remains during the whole period preceding the induction of the form of air; without any previous dispositions to the form of air. On the other hand in the generation of an animal various substantial forms appear: first the semen, then blood and so on until we find the form of an animal or of a man. Consequently this kind of generation is not simple, but consists of a series of generations and corruptions: for it is not possible, as we have proved above, that one and the same substantial form be educed into act by degrees. Thus, then, by the formative force that is in the semen from the beginning, the form of the semen is set aside and another form induced, and when this has been set aside yet another comes on the scene, and thus the vegetal form makes its first appearance: and this being set aside, a soul both vegetal and sensitive is induced; and this being set aside a soul at once vegetal, sensitive and rational is induced, not by the aforesaid force but by the Creator. According to this opinion the embryo before having a rational soul is a living being having a soul, which being set aside, a rational soul is induced: so that it does not follow that two souls are together in the same body, nor that the rational soul is transmitted together with the body.
He appears to accept a succession of forms.
I had to divide the post into two since it was too long --
John Haldane and Patrick Lee, responding to Robert Pasnau, deal with Aquinas on ensoulment in two articles.
Aquinas on Human Ensoulment, Abortion and the Value of Life.
Rational Souls and the Beginning of Life: (A Reply to Robert Pasnau)
They look primarily at the SCG, but they also mention the same part of De Potentia, and their reading of Aquinas appears to be the same as mine. (I would disagree with their application of Aquinas to contemporary embryology, but I may address that in a post.)
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