One of my liberal professors made a worrisome accusation against the Catholic Church’s position on life in the womb and pregnancy. He contended that since the Church teaches that life begins at conception, before the being attaches itself to the wall of the uterus, those beings that do not attach themselves to the wall of the uterus are often literally flushed down the toilet. He was arguing against the idea of a soul being an actual thing, by alluding to how frequently souls are “flushed down the toilet.” How should I go about refuting his contention?
’
Thanks for reading,
Your professor’s argument is an old and tired one, not to mention an ignorant one, and only meant to make Catholics feel confused and guilty. Guilty, because it makes it sound like we approve of flushing babies down the toilet. The hope is that such guilt will lead us to give up our belief that life ends at conception, not because of any actual scienctific or theological reason, but just because it makes us feel less uncomfortable. It 's so old-hat it hardly deserves your attention, but just for fun, let’s treat it as if it deserves serious consideration.
First let’s examine his premises.
Life begins at conception: Correct, this is what the Church teaches. The question of exactly when ensoulment happens has already been discussed in this thread. We should assume, at least for the sake of reasonable caution, that ensoulment happens at conception as well. The Church certainly does, which is why we are obligated to protect human life from conception to natural death, regardless of development, ability, or injury.
That leaves the question of death. It is safe to assume, contrary to what some people are suggesting in this thread, that an embryo that has failed to to implant before the onset of a woman’s menses is dead. What is death, then? Most Christians agree that at death, the soul leaves the body. You cannot flush a soul down the toilet, as he suggests, unless you are flushing a living being, and this would be murder by a particularly nasty drowning. His phrasing suggests he is either ignorant of biology or basic theology of death. Perhaps both.
So, if we accept that life begins at conception and the embryo that was unable to implant is now dead, your professor has actually raised an question on of the treatment of remains, not a soul being flushed like a dead goldfish. Of course it is ideal to treat all human remains with respect and give them a proper burial, precisely because of the dignity we recognize in human life, and when we know about a death we have an obligation to do do so.
However, we can’t bury the dead when we are unaware of their existence. Your professor’s implicit suggestion that ignorance of one death justifies the deliberate causal of another is absurd. His question is based on this line of reasoning:
If a human embryo dies before we know it exists and the remains do not get a proper burial, is it really a person? If not, then embryos are not persons. Therefore, it is morally justifiable to kill an embryo with drugs that render the womb inhospitable and prevent implantation.
For those of us who believe that all human life is equally valuable at all stages, your professor’s question is morally equivalent to this:
"If a man dies naturally in a forest and there is no one there to bury him, was he ever really alive? If not, then men in the he forest are not alive. Therefore, if I see a man in the forest (or suspect there is a man in the he forest) and I don’t want him there, it would be morally justifiable to bomb the forest with him inside.
Your professor is attempting to conflate natural and unnatural death and distract the audience by redefining life instead of asking what our obligations are toward human beings whose exist existence we know of, or (as is the case in the period between. conception and when a woman gets a positive pregnancy test) guess at. The fact that natural deaths occur outside our knowledge does not absolve us of responsibility for the lives we do know about.
