Abortion worse than the Holocaust

[SoCalRC]

A distinction without a difference.

Forgive me for such a belated response. This is such an emotionally charged issue for some folks that I always try to give some serious prayer and thought before saying anything at all. Since you seemed to have missed my original point entirely, I really wanted to give some thought before responding.

Taking your post a step at a time, starting with the first sentence. That was, ultimately, my point. A theological difference, even one involving access to an afterlife, is not going to change the emotional intensity one feels about abortion. However, it appears that you were not responding to my point, but challenging what is, and what is not Church teaching.

The Church has ALWAYS taught that abortion was a mortal sin regardless of what stage of development.

The Church has, with a couple of minor historical exceptions, always taught that most forms of abortion are mortal sins. By defination, a mortal sin is grave, but the Church has not always given the same weight to all mortal sins. Further, the weight of some sins has changed.

Case in point, masterbation. It is also a long standing mortal sin, hence grave. At points in Church history some theologians even have referred to it, literally, as “murder”. However, if I were to write a post asserting that, based on shear numbers, masterbation is ‘worse’ than abortion I suspect that I would get a great number of very un-Christian responses (with good reason, I might add).

The question then becomes, ‘in the Church, has abortion always been treated as grieviously as murder’ and the answer is no. Primarily early abortions, but sometimes even later term abortions have, for much of church history, been treated as very serious forms of birth control, not murder. This can be very difficult for us to accept today, but it is far less shocking when you view it in the context of history, not by today’s standards.

The disitinction made between animated or ensouled was for the purpose of determing the pennace and for a brief time whether the sin could only be forgiven by appeal to the Vatican.

I’m sorry, that is quite incorrect. The concept of delayed ensoulement dates from Aristotle and was always a presence in Pauline Christianity. It gained prominence with St. Augustine in the 4th century and St. Jerome in the 5th century. It is not just a matter of abortion, but also an attempt to reconcile a God of mercy and love with the realities of human reproduction. Even today, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of all pregancies spontaneously abort before the mother is even aware she is pregnant. Of detected pregnancies, about 20% (varies wildly with were you live and your socio economic status) end in early miscarriage. In the ancient world, with even higher numbers, theologians asked, why would God create so many souls simply to destroy them?

Pope Innocent III applied the principle directly to a case of abortion (specifically ruling that early abortion was not murder) and, at the beginning of the 13th Century, changed the point of ensoulment from the traditional 80-90 days to a ‘quickening’ (mother feels movement) test. Later in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, argued that the principle was sound and important.

Pope Gregory XIV reaffirmed the teaching in the 16th century, but set a hard limit of 116 days for the quickening test. And,of course, Pope Pius IX reaffirmed the theological concept even as he dropped the distinction for purposes of Church law in the 19th century and Rome has reaffirmed the concept several times during the 20th century (the last specific statement I am aware of is from 1989, though Pope John Paul II made passing references to delayed ensoulment when he gave a speech about our obligations to individuals in persistive/permanent vegative states after that).

cont.

 

[SoCalRC]

The idea that abortion during the early stage of development was ever allowed by the Church is simply not true.Once one understands this the rest of you arguments collaspe.

That is actually an argument I never made. However, as difficult as it may be for many to accept, it is true. Since you mentioned pennance, let’s look at those 7th and 8th century penitentials in the Western Church. Murder seems to have required 25 years to life of pennance. Sterilization, 10 years. Oral Sex, 7 years. An abortion before ensoulment, 120 days.

This can be shocking to many Catholics today. However, it needs proper historical context. Jesus was born into the only remotely pro-life society and religion in the hemisphere at the time. Jews were absolutely alone in rejecting not just abortion, but infanticide - a way more common form of birth control in the ancient world.

The Halacha did not teach that the fetus was a human, but that it was very precious because it was potentially human. At birth, or first breath (note that in early texts ‘Spirit’ could, literally, be translated as ‘breath’). However, if a pregnancy threatened the life of the mother or her children, not only was an abortion permitted, it was required.

Pauline Christianity, however, flourished among people with no religious or social resistance to abortion and infanticide at all. Many of these early Christians assumed that laws regarding abortion and burying or abandoning unwanted newborns were like laws regarding pork, simply not applicable to them because they were not Jews. So we see a lot of early Christian writing, starting in the 2nd Century, that strenously condems abortion.

Still, these writings did not agree and often left exceptions. For example, Tertullian, who is often cited because he states what many fundementalists believe, that ensoulment occurs at conception (though because of a concept called ‘Traducian Theory’, which the Church now holds to be completely heretical), actually describes a primitive ‘partial birth abortion’ in gory detail in his book about the human soul. He seems to argue that when the baby is in some way disabled or the mother’s life is in danger, it is a ‘necessary cruelty’, that even the most conservative lover of life would object to.

Exceptions for the life of the mother can be found throughout history, granted even by several saints. It was not until Pope Leo XIII issued a decree in 1886 that exceptions for the life of the mother were clearly not allowed. This was reaffirmed by Rome in 1902, again in papal statements/letters in 1930 and 1951. And, of course, it was declared in 1993 to be an infallible teaching by Pope John Paul II.

Again this evolving stance and seeming permissiveness might shock many modern Catholics, but you have to view it in the context of history. Consider this quote from Pope Stephen V that is often cited on pro life web sites:

“If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old.” - Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

At first read, most modern Catholics go ‘aha!’, but look carefully. He is saying that it should be self evident that a child who is born is of greater value than one still in the womb. This would seem to run opposite of what we are now taught (a mother’s life cannot be placed above a fetus, even though one has been born). But it makes more sense if you realize that the subject being discussed was not abortion, but widespread infanticide. nearly 900 years after the death of Christ, practices like burying unwanted infants alive was still widespread among the common laity. And, there was still some question as to rather the Church should intervene.

In that context it looks like the Pope was saying, ‘look, we believe that abortion of an ensouled fetus is murder, isn’t it obvious that killing infants should be more objectionable?’ Rome’s understanding has evolved, but the discrepencies are much more understandable when you realize that the Church was in the middle of a 1500 year campaign against infanticide and abandonment.

cont.

 

[SoCalRC]

Since the Holocaust death toll was 12 millipn and the abortion death poll is over 45 million and counting in this country alone it is obvious the latter is more serious than the former.

I take it you are including all victims of Nazi persecution (normally the number is cited at 11 million). I also assume that you are estimating our current abortion rate (about 1.2 million per year) times 35 years (give or take).

Now, you seem to say it is obvious that since one number is bigger than the other, we can make an obvious moral judgement. But how about if we look at annual rates? 2.5 million soviet POWs died in Nazi custody in a single 8 month period. That is just one segment of Nazi victims and it is nearly twice our abortion rate in 2/3 the time. And the Nazi death machine numerically soared each year after 1940. Ultimately, about 50 million people died in a 4 year global struggle bringing it to an end.

Do I think that these numbers make it ‘obvious’ that war and eugenics is more evil than abortion? No. But I do think that atrocities of this nature are beyond the true comprehension of the human mind. Equating human lives to numbers and then making mathmatical comparisons, to me, simply loses sight of the true value of each human life. Doing so, even to promote what one believes is a noble cause trivializes the suffering of others. Which, again, I think is beyond our ability to truly comprehend.

Best Regards