Nanci Pelosi on St. Augustine, human life begins at three months?

[Ana_v]

I recently watched this video that is a couple of years old:

youtube.com/watch?v=IepLtfNSM7I

where Nanci Pelosi is prompted to give a response to “when does life begin?” She invokes the Catholic Church in her response, and at 1:39 -1:41 mentions St.Augustine as believing it begins at “three months”.

Independent of the fact that she gave the severely misleading impression that the Catholic Church hasn’t settled on an official view with respect to when human life begins – was her statement about St. Augustine correct?

(I realize that within the video itself, it states St. Augustine opposed abortion, but that part does not mention when St. Augustine believed life begins, which is what I am interested in knowing about him. )

Elsewhere I have read that St. Augustine believed ensoulment did not occur at conception – is that the same as saying he did not believe physical life began at conception?

 

[kimmielittle]

And she hasn’t changed

Ms Pelosi on Catholicism…F

Ms Pelosi on biology…F

I even graded on the curve

Ms Pelosi on using any means to promote her agenda…A

 

[Aesculus]

I have little idea what Augustine thought on the matter, quick google searches seemed to support what Pelosi was citing him for, but again its someone taking the spirit out of the letter when they want to justify a position that is entirely deviant. She may have been in line with church teaching back in 500AD in saying that abortion for a 3 week old embryo isn’t necessarly murder and more akin to contraception (which, of course, the church was opposed to back then and now, yet she probably doesn’t even bat an eye at THIS issue), but she can hardly call herself a faithful catholic today. The reason for the change is two fold, I think. First, that no one had the tools to see the significant change that occurs the moment that a sperm fertilizes an egg- perhaps they thought that nothing really happens on this order until much later (e.g. three weeks later). Second is the question of soul: when does God give us the rational soul? This is not an unimportant question, if we only have “animal” souls up to a certain point, then killing that “animal” would not constitute murder any more than killing your dog would. But unless you want to start aborting 2 year old kids and citing child abdutors with theft and animal cruelty instead of kidnapping and murder, you can’t say that they are given a spiritual soul at or just before the first moment that they exhibit spiritual powers. Which then leads to the idea that the powers are there, but they are hidden. And if they are hidden, then when can we know it’s “o.k” to kill the embryo? The idea that the soul is the substantial form of the human being, and that it is one and not an aggregate of souls of different properties (i.e. one plant soul, one animal soul, and one rational soul) stacked on top of each other leads to the conclusion that the spiritual soul is present at the moment of substantial change in the egg, i.e. conception, and thus must be protected.

I hope someone can answer your historical question on Augustine better than I can.

 

[Lainey63]

I do recall reading about St Augustine and abortion many years ago and he ended the sentence stating something like because we don’t know for sure it is best to not get an abortion. (I’m just going by memory here)

Nancy is using part of what he said to justify her own distorted views just like an abusive christian husband would only use part of St Paul’s words for a wife to be obedient to her husband and totally disregards the rest of the message.

 

[Patrickulating]

Has anyone thought to ask her the follow up question of whether this means that abortions after the first trimester should be banned?

 

[JRKH]

Like others I don’t have a full answer but I did find the following that might provide some insight.
From: Abortion and Catholic Thought: The Little-Told History

One of the earliest church documents, the Didache, condemns abortion but asks two critical questions: 1) Is abortion being used to conceal the sins of fornication and adultery? and 2) Does the fetus have a rational soul from the moment of conception, or does it become an “ensouled human” at a later point? The matter of “hominization” — the point at which a developing embryo or fetus becomes a human being — would become one of the cornerstones of debate about abortion, and it remains a subject of debate even today.

St. Augustine (354-430) condemned abortion because it breaks the connection between sex and procreation. However, in the Enchiridion, he says, “But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed fetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified” — clearly seeing hominization as beginning or occurring at some point after the fetus has begun to grow. He held that abortion was not an act of homicide. Most theologians of his era agreed with him.

In a disciplinary sense, the general agreement at this time was that abortion was a sin requiring penance if it was intended to conceal fornication and adultery.

The quotes of St Augustine come from the “Enchiridion” and also from “De nuptiis et concupiscentia”. Neither of which I have tried to look up yet.

But what I note in both the Didache and Augustine’s quotes is that neither permits abortion. BOTH condemn abortion. The discussion is not about whether it should be condemned, but only under what sin it should be condemned.

Peace
James

 

[JimG]

Has anyone thought to ask her the follow up question of whether this means that abortions after the first trimester should be banned?

Exactly. I often hear those favoring abortion try to make the argument about when life begins by citing Augustine (who obviously knew no embryology and had never seen an ultrasound). But the follow-up question ought always to be: “So you favor banning abortion after 3 months? Or after the heart begins to beat?” Nobody ever asks that follow up question.

But citing Augustine is just phony. All that was known of ‘when life begins’ in his day was the approximate time that a mother could feel the baby kick, which they called “quickening.” And it was already well developed by that point.

There is not the slightest doubt, embryologically and genetically, that a new human being begins at conception.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Exactly. I often hear those favoring abortion try to make the argument about when life begins by citing Augustine (who obviously knew no embryology and had never seen an ultrasound). But the follow-up question ought always to be: “So you favor banning abortion after 3 months? Or after the heart begins to beat?” Nobody ever asks that follow up question.

But citing Augustine is just phony. All that was known of ‘when life begins’ in his day was the approximate time that a mother could feel the baby kick, which they called “quickening.” And it was already well developed by that point.

There is not the slightest doubt, embryologically and genetically, that a new human being begins at conception.

I agree with you, that the soul is there at conception and that at 3 months, the mother can feel the baby.

That being said, it is true that a lot of mothers lose their babies naturally (miscarriage) between 0-3 months, I know that happened with my first pregnancy, and I have known many other women for whom that is true.

Also, you don’t really mourn for the loss of a embryo before 3 months, because it’s so tiny, just looks like blood when it leaves one’s body. So perhaps that is what Augustine meant, not that it’s okay to willfully abort a fetus, but that when it happens naturally, it’s not such a big deal.

 

[Barbkw]

Has anyone thought to ask her the follow up question of whether this means that abortions after the first trimester should be banned?

At the May 6, 2010 conference, Pelosi told her audience “you know the Gospel reference of the Word.” She added that people have to give voice to “what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word.”

She cited the Prologue to the Gospel of John’s description of Jesus Christ, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

At last week’s press briefing CNSNews.com reporter Jane McGrath asked: “So, when was the Word made flesh? Was it at the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the Creed says, or was it at the Nativity when he was born of the Virgin Mary? And when did the Word get the right to life?”

cnsnews.com/news/article/70445

Speaker Pelosi, a self-described Catholic, replied: “Whenever it was, we bow our heads when we talk about it in church, and that’s where I’d like to talk about that.”

 

[JimG]

I agree with you, that the soul is there at conception and that at 3 months, the mother can feel the baby.

That being said, it is true that a lot of mothers lose their babies naturally (miscarriage) between 0-3 months, I know that happened with my first pregnancy, and I have known many other women for whom that is true.

Also, you don’t really mourn for the loss of a embryo before 3 months, because it’s so tiny, just looks like blood when it leaves one’s body. So perhaps that is what Augustine meant, not that it’s okay to willfully abort a fetus, but that when it happens naturally, it’s not such a big deal.

When it happens naturally, it’s a miscarriage, which is not a sin.

Augustine didn’t know when a new human began. The prevailing view then was that until quickening, the embryo was unformed matter, and that a soul was later infused by God to make in into a human being.

But we have known for a long time now, biologically, that’s not how it works. There’s nothing “unformed” about a new embryo. Even from the moment of conception, it demonstrates a teleology, beginning its growth to adulthood.

Augustine considered aborting an “unformed” embryo to be something less than killing a human being, but still immoral. If he had our scientific knowledge, he would not have considered the embryo at any stage of development to anything other than a human being.

 

[JM3]

I recently watched this video that is a couple of years old:

youtube.com/watch?v=IepLtfNSM7I

where Nanci Pelosi is prompted to give a response to “when does life begin?” She invokes the Catholic Church in her response, and at 1:39 -1:41 mentions St.Augustine as believing it begins at “three months”.

Independent of the fact that she gave the severely misleading impression that the Catholic Church hasn’t settled on an official view with respect to when human life begins – was her statement about St. Augustine correct?

(I realize that within the video itself, it states St. Augustine opposed abortion, but that part does not mention when St. Augustine believed life begins, which is what I am interested in knowing about him. )

Elsewhere I have read that St. Augustine believed ensoulment did not occur at conception – is that the same as saying he did not believe physical life began at conception?

St. Augustine of Hippo

The Enchiridion

CHAP. 85.–THE CASE OF ABORTIVE CONCEPTIONS.

Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother’s womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed. Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be present: so that the nature shall neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that length of days has added; but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed.

CHAP. 86.–IF THEY HAVE EVER LIVED, THEY MUST OF COURSE HAVE DIED, AND THEREFORE SHALL HAVE A SHARE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead.

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

But we have known for a long time now, biologically, that’s not how it works. There’s nothing “unformed” about a new embryo. Even from the moment of conception, it demonstrates a teleology, beginning its growth to adulthood.

Amazingly enough this growth begins long before that – when the child’s mother’s ovaries first form the egg cell – when the mother herself was a baby! It blew my mind when I was first told that baby girls have all the eggs they will ever have and that they care for them all through their lives (until they run out).

 

[JM3]

St. Augustine of Hippo

The City of God (Book XXII)

CHAPTER 13 – WHETHER ABORTIONS, IF THEY ARE NUMBERED AMONG THE DEAD, SHALL NOT ALSO HAVE A PART IN THE RESURRECTION.

To these objections, then, of our adversaries which I have thus detailed, I will now reply, trusting that God will mercifully assist my endeavors. That abortions, which, even supposing they were alive in the womb, did also die there, shall rise again, I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead. For either all the dead shall not rise, and there will be to all eternity some souls without bodies though they once had them – only in their mother’s womb, indeed; or, if all human souls shall receive again the bodies which they had wherever they lived, and which they left when they died, then I do not see how I can say that even those who died in their mother’s womb shall have no resurrection. But whichever of these opinions any one may adopt concerning them, we must at least apply to them, if they rise again, all that we have to say of infants who have been born.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

How would Nancy Pelosi respond to the following anecdote?

**A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:

'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help!

My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I’m pregnant again.

I don’t want kids so close together.’

So the doctor said: ‘Ok, and what do you want me to do?’

She said: ‘I want you to end my pregnancy, and I’m counting on your help with this.’

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady:**

*‘I think I have a better solution for your problem. It’s less dangerous for you too.’

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let’s kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born.

If we’re going to kill one of them, it doesn’t matter which one it is.*

*There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It’s a crime to kill a child!

‘I agree’, the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.
*

 

[JimG]

Amazingly enough this growth begins long before that – when the child’s mother’s ovaries first form the egg cell – when the mother herself was a baby! It blew my mind when I was first told that baby girls have all the eggs they will ever have and that they care for them all through their lives (until they run out).

You are right about girls and the development of the ova. But a new human being does not begin until an egg and a sperm unite to form a biologically and genetically distinct new individual of the human species.

 

[sherimarie]

Thankyou JM3!!!

 

[JM3]

You’re welcome.

 

[thistle]

I recently watched this video that is a couple of years old:

youtube.com/watch?v=IepLtfNSM7I

where Nanci Pelosi is prompted to give a response to “when does life begin?” She invokes the Catholic Church in her response, and at 1:39 -1:41 mentions St.Augustine as believing it begins at “three months”.

Independent of the fact that she gave the severely misleading impression that the Catholic Church hasn’t settled on an official view with respect to when human life begins – was her statement about St. Augustine correct?

(I realize that within the video itself, it states St. Augustine opposed abortion, but that part does not mention when St. Augustine believed life begins, which is what I am interested in knowing about him. )

Elsewhere I have read that St. Augustine believed ensoulment did not occur at conception – is that the same as saying he did not believe physical life began at conception?

She should be obeying Church teaching and not quoting an opinion of a Church Father which is not Church teaching.
The way she twists things it would allow her not to believe in The Immaculate Conception because she could quote St Thomas Aquinas who did not believe in it.

 

[kimmielittle]

How would Nancy Pelosi respond to the following anecdote?

**A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:

'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help!

My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I’m pregnant again.

I don’t want kids so close together.’

So the doctor said: ‘Ok, and what do you want me to do?’

She said: ‘I want you to end my pregnancy, and I’m counting on your help with this.’

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady:**

*‘I think I have a better solution for your problem. It’s less dangerous for you too.’

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let’s kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born.

If we’re going to kill one of them, it doesn’t matter which one it is.*

*There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It’s a crime to kill a child!

‘I agree’, the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.
*

 

[Ender]

I recently watched this video that is a couple of years old … where Nanci Pelosi is prompted to give a response to “when does life begin?” She invokes the Catholic Church in her response, and at 1:39 -1:41 mentions St.Augustine as believing it begins at “three months”.

Independent of the fact that she gave the severely misleading impression that the Catholic Church hasn’t settled on an official view with respect to when human life begins – was her statement about St. Augustine correct?

Given their primitive understanding of embryology the best they could say at the time of Augustine was that human life existed at three months (which is still a lot sooner than Pelosi et al would allow). Since they didn’t know the real nature of the embryo they didn’t try to define it, but that is not at all the same as saying they defined it as something as other than a human life. This is why an early abortion was not considered homicide: they didn’t know when human life began so they couldn’t definitively say that destroying a fetus at that stage was a homicide or not. It was still a sin but could not be defined as homicide.

I don’t know exactly what Augustine said but I suspect that it was “life exists” at three months, not “life begins” there.

Ender