Morals and abortion

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billcu1

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I was reading a book today about ethics and it said the church has not always held the belief that abortion at the time of conception was sinful. It cited Summa Theologica where Aquinus agrees with Aristotle that the soul doesn’t enter the baby until some time after conception. Is this true?
 
billcu1 said:
I was reading a book today about ethics and it said the church has not always held the belief that abortion at the time of conception was sinful. It cited Summa Theologica where Aquinus agrees with Aristotle that the soul doesn’t enter the baby until some time after conception. Is this true?
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That book is incorrect. The church theologians have not consistently taught when ensoulment occurs because, with the advancement of science, the activity of the child has been pushed back farther and farther. In the 80’s I read an article in Scientific American which described all the activities in the child in the 1st minute after fertilization.

The church has always taught that abortion is a sin before or after ensoulment. [see the Didache for one of the first documents dealing with this issue]
 
wanstronian said:
Except when God performs it, presumably?
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I don’t know that God ever performs and abortion. He does allow death at all stages of life. But rarely, if ever, does he come into our lives and smite us.

Of course, if you choose to call natural death, abortion. The every death, not caused by man, is an abortion and God, the author of life, is responsible as it was Him who gave us life.
 
Evan said:
I don’t know that God ever performs and abortion. He does allow death at all stages of life. But rarely, if ever, does he come into our lives and smite us.

Of course, if you choose to call natural death, abortion. The every death, not caused by man, is an abortion and God, the author of life, is responsible as it was Him who gave us life.
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I think the medical term for miscarriages is spontaneous abortion (i.e., not induced.)
 
Evan said:
I don’t know that God ever performs and abortion. He does allow death at all stages of life. But rarely, if ever, does he come into our lives and smite us.

Of course, if you choose to call natural death, abortion. The every death, not caused by man, is an abortion and God, the author of life, is responsible as it was Him who gave us life.
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silicasandra said:
I think the medical term for miscarriages is spontaneous abortion (i.e., not induced.)
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I was being facetious, of course. But I do find it rather convenient that the church can pass this moral judgement about terminations, while simultaneously preaching that nothing happens without it ultimately being God’s responsibility (given his oft-allocated omnimax attributes); yet he is somehow blameless for the miscarriages that occur.

Indeed, given his supposed omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence, why doesn’t he prevent the “death” of these “babies?”

It’s the same old question as to why God allows suffering and death of innocents. A question that has never yet been answered plausibly.
 
wanstronian

**It’s the same old question as to why God allows suffering and death of innocents. A question that has never yet been answered plausibly. **

Sooner or later God takes all of us. What he does with the innocents is His business, not yours.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
wanstronian

**It’s the same old question as to why God allows suffering and death of innocents. A question that has never yet been answered plausibly. **

Sooner or later God takes all of us. What he does with the innocents is His business, not yours.
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As I said - the question has not been given a plausible response.
 
OP, my understanding is that abortion has always been prohibited as contraception, but that it was not always prohibited as murder since we did not always have the science to know that a fetus is a living organism as soon as it’s conceived.
 
This is an interesting topic in light of the recent fiasco at the St Thomas More hospital in Colorado. I note with little surprise that now they’ve defended their legal case they’ve changed their minds back again, and fetuses are once again people.
 
wanstronian said:
This is an interesting topic in light of the recent fiasco at the St Thomas More hospital in Colorado. I note with little surprise that now they’ve defended their legal case they’ve changed their minds back again, and fetuses are once again people.
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How is the arguement from a lawyer respresenting an organization that is not the Church be relevant. Catholics of all strips deny the Church’s teachings, or act hyporcritcally with respect to them. This has no bearing on the truth, other than the truth is not coercive.
 
billcu1 said:
I was reading a book today about ethics and it said the church has not always held the belief that abortion at the time of conception was sinful. It cited Summa Theologica where Aquinus agrees with Aristotle that the soul doesn’t enter the baby until some time after conception. Is this true?
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The Church still does not teach when ensoulment occurs, but abortion has been considered a sin for as far back as we can tell.

It is true that there was a long standing tradition that ‘pre quickening’ abortions were a less grievous sin (the distinction was formally lifted in 1869, but lingered in the printed Catechism until 1920) but it still was always a sin.

Pax Christi
 
wanstronian said:
I was being facetious, of course. But I do find it rather convenient that the church can pass this moral judgement about terminations, while simultaneously preaching that nothing happens without it ultimately being God’s responsibility (given his oft-allocated omnimax attributes); yet he is somehow blameless for the miscarriages that occur.

Indeed, given his supposed omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence, why doesn’t he prevent the “death” of these “babies?”

It’s the same old question as to why God allows suffering and death of innocents. A question that has never yet been answered plausibly.
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Why would God prevent the death of babies? If he did, why would he not prevent the death of adults? Oh yeah, he did. Originally people were created without death. Now we get this immortal life at the resurrection of the dead.

God created the world in a certain way. It is his will that it operate the way he created it. The only thing that operates different than how he would will it is if we (people = men and angels) use our free will to oppose the will of God. So it is a sin to INTENTIONALLY kill a person (preborn, child, or adult) but not a sin to allow someone to die a natural death. For that is how God has designed a persons life. We are all to die, but some want to complain when we don’t die on his schedule, but on His schedule.
 
Evan said:
Why would God prevent the death of babies? If he did, why would he not prevent the death of adults? Oh yeah, he did. Originally people were created without death. Now we get this immortal life at the resurrection of the dead.

God created the world in a certain way. It is his will that it operate the way he created it. The only thing that operates different than how he would will it is if we (people = men and angels) use our free will to oppose the will of God. So it is a sin to INTENTIONALLY kill a person (preborn, child, or adult) but not a sin to allow someone to die a natural death. For that is how God has designed a persons life. We are all to die, but some want to complain when we don’t die on his schedule, but on His schedule.
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Again we see an insufficient answer. How do you know God’s will? Oh, that’s right, you don’t, you’re just guessing, and funnily enough your assertions magically reconcile the irreconcilable!
 
davidv said:
How is the arguement from a lawyer respresenting an organization that is not the Church be relevant. Catholics of all strips deny the Church’s teachings, or act hyporcritcally with respect to them. This has no bearing on the truth, other than the truth is not coercive.
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This is a lawyer representing a hospital that has a Catholic denomination, and the Catholic hospital’s representative was allowed to go against Catholic doctrine in order to defend a lawsuit, and now the Catholic hospital has changed its mind back again.

Regardless of the convenience of all this suspicious u-turning, the fact remains that the Catholic hospital stood idly by while organisms that the Catholic Church regard as “people” died.
 
wanstronian

**Again we see an insufficient answer. How do you know God’s will? Oh, that’s right, you don’t, you’re just guessing, and funnily enough your assertions magically reconcile the irreconcilable! **

Your contempt slip is showing. 😃
 
wanstronian said:
This is a lawyer representing a hospital that has a Catholic denomination, and the Catholic hospital’s representative was allowed to go against Catholic doctrine in order to defend a lawsuit, and now the Catholic hospital has changed its mind back again.

Regardless of the convenience of all this suspicious u-turning, the fact remains that the Catholic hospital stood idly by while organisms that the Catholic Church regard as “people” died.
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Again, what bearing does this have on the truth of the Church’s teaching, other than no one is forced to follow it?
 
davidv said:
Again, what bearing does this have on the truth of the Church’s teaching, other than no one is forced to follow it?
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Well, all I said is that it’s an interesting discussion in light of recent events. I neither claimed nor implied that it had a bearing on official church dogma.

That said, what’s the point of an official church stance on something if its adherents are allowed to, well, not adhere when it suits them? Will this hospital’s adminstration be excommunicated, or whatever the process might be?
 
It is only in secular societies that abortions are performed for convenience rather than. necessity. This is inevitable when persons are regarded as products of purposeless events and moral laws are dismissed as unnecessary conventions rather than truths about personal development.

If only matter exists nothing matters. GIGO…
 
wanstronian

**That said, what’s the point of an official church stance on something if its adherents are allowed to, well, not adhere when it suits them? Will this hospital’s adminstration be excommunicated, or whatever the process might be? **

The Church does not excommunicate officially without giving the sinner or heretic an opportunity to recant and repent. In this case the hospital reversed its position.
 
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