Abortion

[limerick]

***“One could start with what humans wrote in the Constitution,” ***grannymh suggests when asked, “what are the rights of a human?”

Is this truly the place that you, as a Catholic, would start? Doesn’t Church doctrine and dogma go back further than the Constitution?

And Gabriella San S brings up a very disturbing point in that when the body dies the soul *“ascends to His maker for judgment, purification and then begins his eternal life-unless he rejects God, then he “flees with great speed” (according to St.John Bosco) to escape the presence (justice) of God-to eternal damnation.” * Now, what I was taught, by nuns and brothers, mind you, was that upon death we went straight to Purgatory if that was called for, or Hell, if that was called for. How cruel, then, to hear we get to see the face of God before we descend. Of course, my religious education began fifty years ago. Who says the Church isn’t evolving?

Limerick

 

[WillieWonka]

At conception

Only in fairytales.

Gone where?

1. How do you know the soul and body are composite at conception?
2. When the body dies, rots away, disintegrates, or is vaporized is there still a composite body and soul? If a man is a composite, and there is no body, is there a man?

 

[WillieWonka]

The essence of the human being

are those properties or characteristics which distinguish him/her from the rest of living species such as other animals.

A spiritual soul is essential to being human as was said in another post. The soul and body are united from the moment of conception until their separation at death.

Two other characteristics which place a human being in a category totally separate from animals are the intellect and the will. They are basically the power or ability to act in a human way. Because they are an essential part of being human, they exist even when their use is limited by physical circumstances. In addition, there are other elements like emotions, motivation, sense of morality, etc., which are part of human nature.

Above all, it is the soul which makes human life sacred.

Blessings,
granny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect from the moment of their conception.

Good answer. far better that “human is human.”

 

[WillieWonka]

See post 150

One would answer in terms of human activity.

One would answer in measurements devised by a human.

One would answer in terms of years normally lived by a human.

One could start with what humans wrote in the Constitution.

Good answers.

 

[WillieWonka]

\
Actually none of what you say above makes any sense whatsoever-but I guess it sounds cool

Well, read what GrannyMH wrote. She provided reasonable answers to reasonable questions.

(But, you’re right. Cool is a way of life for me.)

 

[WillieWonka]

One understanding is that a “quickening” or “flutter” that the mother feels when she first senses movement, is when the soul possesses the body of her baby.
But Granny’s understanding is more widely accepted these days-at conception.

That’s interesting. The flutter couldn’t happen at conception, but only after fetal movement is possible. So, those who subscribe to this idea would dispute that the early embryo is a composite of body and soul. If there is no soul until flutter, then there can’t be a composite. If there can’t be a composite, then the essence of a man is missing. Therefore, it is not a human being.

But, those who opt for composite of body and soul at conception would say the essence of a man is present, hence the single fertilized cell is a human being.

So, what does the Catholic Church say about the issue. When does the soul unite in a composite with the body?

 

[estesbob]

One understanding is that a “quickening” or “flutter” that the mother feels when she first senses movement, is when the soul possesses the body of her baby.
But Granny’s understanding is more widely accepted these days-at conception.

That’s interesting. The flutter couldn’t happen at conception, but only after fetal movement is possible. So, those who subscribe to this idea would dispute that the early embryo is a composite of body and soul. If there is no soul until flutter, then there can’t be a composite. If there can’t be a composite, then the essence of a man is missing. Therefore, it is not a human being.

But, those who opt for composite of body and soul at conception would say the essence of a man is present, hence the single fertilized cell is a human being.

So, what does the Catholic Church say about the issue. When does the soul unite in a composite with the body?

Why does it matter?

 

[ExDeoVita]

**“Staying off your back.” Hmmm. Sounds like you’re promoting the fallacy that women are solely responsible for unplanned pregnancies.

Is this an example of “CATHOLIC STRONG!!!”?

Limerick**

There is some truth in the observation you made L. - BOTH men and woman are responsible in the act of creating a new life (embryonic life) which begins at contraception (even in the case when it is unplanned). This is why, logic follows that a man should have an equal say in determining the best options for the newest member of their family. And none of those options include abortion. The fallacy really involves the fact that a human being requires both male and female (& the grace of God) to be created, and yet the male loses his right to exercise his responsibility and protect the pre-born child when a woman decides to abort. Woman are not solely responsible for unplanned pregnancies, nor should they be solely responsible in the decision making process after conception, especially when a human life is at stake. Therein lies the true fallacy: found within our legal system, which sadly is becoming more morally bankrupt as each day passes.

 

[grannymh]

***“One could start with what humans wrote in the Constitution,” grannymh suggests when asked, “what are the rights of a human?” ***

Is this truly the place that you, as a Catholic, would start? Doesn’t Church doctrine and dogma go back further than the Constitution?

If nothing else, I’m a practical, experiential learner in a rough society. I may have to start with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

---

**

**And Gabriella San S brings up a very disturbing point in that when the body dies the soul *“ascends to His maker for judgment, purification and then begins his eternal life-unless he rejects God, then he “flees with great speed” (according to St.John Bosco) to escape the presence (justice) of God-to eternal damnation.” ***

Now, what I was taught, by nuns and brothers, mind you, was that upon death we went straight to Purgatory if that was called for, or Hell, if that was called for. How cruel, then, to hear we get to see the face of God before we descend. Of course, my religious education began fifty years ago. Who says the Church isn’t evolving?
**
**Limerick **

As far as I know, both of you are kind of right. There are two kinds of final judgments. The first is individual where most of us go straight to Purgatory or a warmer spot. The second “judgment” involves the second coming of Jesus. Frankly, I’m not sure how to explain this.

I am sure that in the first, we would not see the face of God in the true sense of eternity. I can’t imagine moving one muscle if that happened. So somehow, God lets us know what our lives deserve through our own choices.

 

[WillieWonka]

Why does it matter?

If the flutter people are correct, then some abortions destroy a human being and some don’t.

If the conception people are correct, then all abortions destroy a human being.

I think that is an important aspect of the issue. So, that’s why I ask what the Church says. What does it say?

 

[estesbob]

If the flutter people are correct, then some abortions destroy a human being and some don’t.

If the conception people are correct, then all abortions destroy a human being.

I think that is an important aspect of the issue. So, that’s why I ask what the Church says. What does it say?

’

There is no dipute that seperate, distinct human life is present from the moment of conception on. Whenever we see discussions on “essence” or “personhood” or “enousoulment” you can be sure that justification for taking human life will follow as surely as night follows days.

Here what the Church has always taught:

2319 Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God.

Although there has been spiritied dscussion over the 2,000 year History of the Church as to when the actual “ensoulment” took place the Chiurch has never taught that right to life was dependent on ensoulment.

 

[WillieWonka]

’

There is no dipute that seperate, distinct human life is present from the moment of conception on. Whenever we see discussions on “essence” or “personhood” or “enousoulment” you can be sure that justification for taking human life will follow as surely as night follows days.

Here what the Church has always taught:

2319 Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God.

Although there has been spiritied dscussion over the 2,000 year History of the Church as to when the actual “ensoulment” took place the Chiurch has never taught that right to life was dependent on ensoulment.

OK. So, after all that debate, what does the Church say about when a body and soul become a composite? Does anybody know the Church doctrine on that?

 

[estesbob]

OK. So, after all that debate, what does the Church say about when a body and soul become a composite? Does anybody know the Church doctrine on that?

[362](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/362.htm’) The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore *willed *by God.
[363](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/363.htm’) In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human *life *or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.
[364](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/364.htm’) The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

[366](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/366.htm’) The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235
[367](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/367.htm’) Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238

 

[ExDeoVita]

A “child of about one or two months” is an infant, already up and breathing. Up until 8 weeks’ gestation, a fetus is an embryo, not a child. It has no self-awareness or conception of time, no pain sensation and certainly no opinion regarding its desire for life. Yes, it does have potential to be born, to develop outside the uterus, to mature, to thrive. But inside the uterus it is an embryo or a fetus. It is not a baby, nor is it a child.

Pro-choice people are often chastised for downplaying the human potential and insisting on using words like “blastocyst” and “embryo” and “fetus”. What is so fearsome about speaking in accurate terms regarding gestation? I counter-charge that pro-life people use their own specifically designed, emotion-laced and inaccurate language to lend melodrama to their cause. Good grief, don’t you think it’s enough that a fetus loses its place at the children’s table without having to dress it all up in theatrics?

Limerick

Nope, you continue to prop up your arguments on the idea that a fetal human is not a human being. You need not continue to draw conclusions based on this false premise. A fetal human is worth becoming emotional about, precisely because they are human beings. There would be no emotional outcry or ‘theatrics’ as you say if this was over flowers or stones. Its not over merely flowers or stones, and it is not something to be subjectively permissive of. It should be no less ‘emotionally-laced’ as were the reactions of those who rightly stood against Hitler’s bloody ‘cause’. If your hold up is in syntax, word definition or the terms promulgated by planned parenthood like ‘fetus’,blob’, or ‘tissue’, to mask their morally deplorable baby killing than see if you can follow the following logic that Peter Kreeft lays out:

“They’re fetal children, fetal humans, fetal persons. A “fetus” isn’t another species. A fetal ape isn’t a worm, it’s an ape at the fetal stage of development. And a fetal human isn’t an ape, it’s a human at the fetal stage of development. It’s you at at one stage of your development. Once you were a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus, then an infant, than a youth, then a teenager, then an adult. “Adult” isn’t a noun, it’s an adjective: adult human being. The same with “infant”—it means “infant human being.” So with “fetus”. That’s what the word means: fetal human.” (Kreeft, Peter. Three Approaches to Abortion. Ignatius Press, p. 84)

We who are pro-life don’t mis-understand what a ‘fetus’ is, it is those who mis-understand and use medical terms to defend the indefensible.

*I would highly recommend this book to others in this thread who hear arguments like these all the time. Kreeft pretty much dismantles all of these stale arguments one by one. I suppose the people at planed parenthood will be entering the think tank again pretty soon to devise more sound-good rhetoric for their deplorable acts.

 

[grannymh]

1. How do you know the soul and body are composite at conception?

First, it makes logical sense considering that the essence of a human exists from the beginning. However, I would prefer to say that the soul and body are united as one being.

Second, our own observation tells us that there is something intangible existing within us which had to be there from the beginning.

Third, Catholicism teaches that we are made up of body and soul from the very beginning.

1. When the body dies, rots away, disintegrates, or is vaporized is there still a composite body and soul? If a man is a composite, and there is no body, is there a man?

The definition of death is the separation of body and soul. The soul, which is indestructible by nature, either returns to God or flees from God. There are plenty of posts about heaven, purgatory, and hell for your reference.

The body, in whatever condition, even if its ashes float away, will someday resurrect as a glorified body. The resurrection of the body is a belief of Catholicism. This sounds good to me.

Your last question: “If a man is a composite, and there is no body, is there a man?” is a challenge. Especially since there is an earthly time lapse between death and resurrection. I am going to ask a friend for help with your question and I will get back to you maybe tomorrow or later.

Keep the questions coming.

 

[limerick]

Why does it matter?

**This is a thread about abortion. If the soul is not “infused” into the human form at conception and can only be determined by quickening, at roughly four months’ gestation, then abortions that occur before quickening, or before 4 months’ conception, are not “killing babies”, as you all like to say. They are, instead, removing tissue without a soul.

Limerick**

 

[limerick]

Nope, you continue to prop up your arguments on the idea that a fetal human is not a human being. You need not continue to draw conclusions based on this false premise. A fetal human is worth becoming emotional about, precisely because they are human beings. There would be no emotional outcry or ‘theatrics’ as you say if this was over flowers or stones. Its not over merely flowers or stones, and it is not something to be subjectively permissive of. It should be no less ‘emotionally-laced’ as were the reactions of those who rightly stood against Hitler’s bloody ‘cause’. If your hold up is in syntax, word definition or the terms promulgated by planned parenthood like ‘fetus’,blob’, or ‘tissue’, to mask their morally deplorable baby killing than see if you can follow the following logic that Peter Kreeft lays out:

“They’re fetal children, fetal humans, fetal persons. A “fetus” isn’t another species. A fetal ape isn’t a worm, it’s an ape at the fetal stage of development. And a fetal human isn’t an ape, it’s a human at the fetal stage of development. It’s you at at one stage of your development. Once you were a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus, then an infant, than a youth, then a teenager, then an adult. “Adult” isn’t a noun, it’s an adjective: adult human being. The same with “infant”—it means “infant human being.” So with “fetus”. That’s what the word means: fetal human.” (Kreeft, Peter. Three Approaches to Abortion. Ignatius Press, p. 84)

We who are pro-life don’t mis-understand what a ‘fetus’ is, it is those who mis-understand and use medical terms to defend the indefensible.

*I would highly recommend this book to others in this thread who hear arguments like these all the time. Kreeft pretty much dismantles all of these stale arguments one by one. I suppose the people at planed parenthood will be entering the think tank again pretty soon to devise more sound-good rhetoric for their deplorable acts.

Actually, you are completely INcorrect. I have not said anywhere that a fetal human is not a human being. What I find taxingly stale is pro-life individuals continually having to prop up their arguments with 1) Hitler, and 2) slavery. What a snooze. Can’t you argue your points without having to resort to these old warhorses? Isn’t abortion enough of an affront to you to enable you to argue eloquently against it without stooping to this?

I know what a fetus is, ExDeoVita. I’ve had four of them in my own uterus. Fetuses are fetuses after 8 weeks and until they are born. Then they are infants, or neonates. I’m sure the term “neonate” irritates you as much as “fetus” does, but those are the correct terms for these “blobs” (and, yes, that offends even me). The word fetus does not only apply to the human being. Your Peter Kreeft needs to consult current references. Embryo also refers to other species. Go back through this thread and read it from the beginning to get the complete picture. These terms have already been addressed over and over.

Limerick

 

[limerick]

*"366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235"

Embalming fluid isn’t that good.

Limerick*

 

[grannymh]

This is a thread about abortion. If the soul is not “infused” into the human form at conception and can only be determined by quickening, at roughly four months’ gestation, then abortions that occur before quickening, or before 4 months’ conception, are not “killing babies”, as you all like to say. They are, instead, removing tissue without a soul.

Limerick

Of course the soul is infused into the human form at conception. That bit about quickening dates back centuries and even then it was only an opinion.

 

[limerick]

Of course the soul is infused into the human form at conception. That bit about quickening dates back centuries and even then it was only an opinion.

In my opinion, so is the presumption that a soul is infused into two cells at conception. estesbob wrote a very lengthy quote from, I am guessing, the Catechism of Christian Doctrine (or the Catechism of the Catholic Church), and nowhere in that post does it say specifically when the soul and body become “one”. In fact, estesbob’s quote mentions this: "'then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." This leads me to believe that man is man, complete with soul, once he takes a breath and not before. And this: * “The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents …” * This suggests that the soul is waiting to be placed into the body, but it does not say when God performs this act. What does “immediately” mean?

I’m not convinced it can be proven when the soul enters the body.

Limerick