Roe V. Wade and St. Thomas

[Huiou_Theou]

So you are saying that Davids mother sinned when she conceived David?

You’re making an inference.

The psalm can be read in multiple ways, all of which are true to varying degrees. One is that David is speaking of a maternal parent in his own line, and another is that he is speaking the psalm (at least partially) in the person of the child he begat by Bathsheba. Often Psalms speak from the point of view of someone other than the psalmist themselves. For example, many of the psalms, the so called messianic psalms; speak in the person of Jesus the Christ. That is particularly true of the psalms concerning the crucifixion or condemning Judas. Eg: Psalm 22,41,69

That’s why I am drawing your attention to the fact that psalm 51 records the reason/context the psalm was inspired and should be read in: ( To the choir-master. A psalm. Of David, when the prophet Nathan came to reproach him for his adultery with Bathsheba. ) The context of the Psalm is David’s adultery.

I can not know if David’s immediate mother sinned. Many times in scripture, the reference to mother or father (Do not say we have “Abraham for our father” Matthew 3:9) applies to someone more distant in the person’s past. The title can even apply to many of them. But, notice: Any covenant/oath/act of the parent who is head of the family affects the inheritance of the flesh of the children. Their legal acts are inherited by the children; Hebrews 7:9-10 I think there also is a strong case for Oaths and swearing by generation/genital organs being binding upon children: cf: Genesis 24:2

So, David could be speaking of any mother all the way back to Eve, who “ate” the forbidden fruit in lust. But King David (based on context) is also be speaking of Bathsheba who is not the mother of David, but is rather a mother belonging to David.
Just as the words “son of man”, merely means another man; “my mother” could be an indirect reference to a pregnant wife. The reason David would use double entendre is the same reason that James does: Sin can be conceived into a man’s soul (eg: James 1:15) David, who obviously doted on Bathsheba, saw her as his favored mother among his multiple wives.

If you’re going to pick at the psalm…
I think the most difficult point of the psalm is where it says: “your sentence was deserved.”
I have a hard time seeing that as pointing to a sentence for a sin committed by the person being punished; esp. as David’s sin was forgiven (2Samuel 12:13), and unless a child is punished for his mother’s sin but not his father’s; there is a problem regardless of which parent David actually meant: Ezekiel 18:20

2Samuel 12:5 David said,“As the Lord is a living God [oath], death is due to such a man; for this cruel deed of his he shall make compensation fourfold.”
2Samuel 12:13-14,“The lord has forgiven your sin, you shall not die for it… the son that has been born to you is doomed to die … the little [bastard] son Urias’ wife had bore was struck down by the Lord, and no hope was left for him.”

So, I’ll just let the post-partial-birth abortion innuendo sort of hang out unanswered…

I think St. Paul is speaking of a certain blessing that a child receives when one or its parents are in a state of grace during the conception

I agree.

I am wondering though is anyone has any creditable material on Innocent III and early abortions

Me too. That’s a major reason for me starting the thread.

 

[francisca]

Conception is related to God’s freewill and God’s plan for our salvation since the begining of the creation (first day, Genesis 1:1), as well as Mary’s being conceived as the conception of “the new heaven and earth” (John 1:1). The cooperation out of freewill the human’s participation also plays imporant role in the Conception of the new world/ new person.

There is conception of heaven and earth as well as for each of God’s children in our newbirth in Christ, God has specific plan for each of us.

As conception related to biology, I think it’s rather too big a mystery for us to solve.

I have never read Thomas Aquinas’ The Commentary of The Sentences though.

I supposed when we sin, we jeopardaize God’s plan for us, both spiritually and naturally, generally speaking. Specific for each person is God’s mysterious plan for each person, but always in relation to the person’s (in the case of abortion, the parent’s) salvation through Christ, his/her repentance, and also his/ her coopertion out of his/ her freewill is important.

King David’s story, his infant son was struck dead by The Lord due to King David’s sin. However, we as humans, we shouldn’t think too far as to discern such punishment for human children (or, human fetus). Only God can do such punishment. It wasn’t prophet Nathan who did it. It was God and His Law.

King David then repented. God forgave him and gave him & Bathsheba second son whom later became King Solomon.

Abortion has become legal in US and in other places of the world.
However, it’s another separate discussion regarding the morality of it, I suppose.

Can discussion about ensoulment and pregnancy age get abortion it’s moral stand? I would say the answer to such question is not in the “when biologicaly”, rather what is God’s will? His Will is life. So God try to save us from death. In King David’s story, death was prescribed by God’s Law. By the Law abortion is a death sentence. The adulterous parents also deserve death sentence. But by His Mercy through Christ, new life is prescribed to dead people, through repentance and faith in Christ, first to the parents then to the children/ fetus.

 

[thinkandmull]

Did Roe vs. Wade really mention Aquinas? I’ve never read the decision or the dissents.

A speaker on Catholic radio said that God cannot command an abortion. However, many Catholics believe that God commanded the killing of innocent children in the Old Testament. Maybe they draw a distinction between abortion and that, but I for one believe only “youngings” who were stubbornly evil were kill.

To be fair, the Bible twice has God commanding pregnant women to be ripped upon and the child torn out. However, maybe the child’s death was what they call “collateral damage”. Yet God could have said “kill the woman AFTER birth”.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Did Roe vs. Wade really mention Aquinas? I’ve never read the decision or the dissents.

Blackmun, at least, mentions St. Thomas’s theory in the Majority opinion:

michaelariens.com/ConLaw/cases/roe.htm

1. The common law. It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before “quickening”-the first recognizable movement of the fetus in utero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of pregnancy-was not an indictable offense. Due to continued uncertainty about the precise time when animation occurred, to the lack of any empirical basis for the 40-80-day view, and perhaps to Aquinas’ definition of movement as one of the two first principles of life, Bracton focused upon quickening as the critical point. The significance of quickening was echoed by later common-law scholars and found its way into the received common law in this country.

Curiously, Thomas actually indicated 40-90 days in the Latin text I inspected. So there is a very good chance that the justices did not actually read Thomas themselves, not actually study what innocent III decreed, exactly but merely were told about these events from some secondary source with a bias.

I am sure there is also a brief which was submitted to the court which mentioned St. Thomas, although I don’t see a copy of it at the moment in an easily accessible place.



God, as the author of life, can require a person’s life from them. We, as human beings, don’t have the prerogative to pick and choose just because God does. We aren’t the lords and givers of life.

Yes, there are many disturbing passages where a form of genocide is decreed by God on account of the Israelite’s sins. God himself was going to drive all these peoples out of the promised land using bees and other wild animals and not kill them. The plan, however, was changed when the sin at the golden calf occurred and Israel lost God’s direct support in war.

On the other hand, the decrees you speak of and the psalms were given at a time when Christian baptism was not possible; heaven was not open to all peoples. The death of a child in that time period is not necessarily the same as it is now. When Jesus died he entered sheol to preach to the peoples in “prison”, but he did not go to the people who obeyed. Rather Jesus went only to people who disobeyed as far back as the time of Noah. (but not before then, see. Peter’s epistles for details. )

The exact reason God said various things at diverse times is a very great puzzle.

However, there is never abortion approved when the people involved were part of the promise from Abraham. For example, if Judah had demanded an abortion for Tamar on account of “incest” (not rape) that still would have been an attempt to kill off the messiah. The abortion clearly would have been a crime far more hideous than incest.

That’s also, incidentally, why Er and Onan’s sin of masturbation to prevent childbirth was so odius that God killed them for it. God notably does not kill everyone who masturbates. But Er and Onan were attempting to make the messiah’s prophesied line, Judah, sterile. The masturbation was not merely a sin against God, it was a sin against everyone God intended to save.

 

[thinkandmull]

If Catholic women started saying that the Virgin Mary appeared to them and told them to have an abortion, should we in any way test them to see if they are telling the truth, or would you say that must certainly be wrong right off the bat?

 

[Usagi]

If Catholic women started saying that the Virgin Mary appeared to them and told them to have an abortion, should we in any way test them to see if they are telling the truth, or would you say that must certainly be wrong right off the bat?

Whether it were Mary or Jesus, it could be dismissed as wrong right off the bat, as neither Our Lady nor Our Lord is going to command that someone commit a mortal (or even a venial) sin.

Usagi

 

[Huiou_Theou]

If Catholic women started saying that the Virgin Mary appeared to them and told them to have an abortion, should we in any way test them to see if they are telling the truth, or would you say that must certainly be wrong right off the bat?

I am at a total loss as to where this question comes from.
What motivates you to ask it, in the context of the thread’s opening post?

The Marian Dogma of the Immaculate Conception is of higher authority than the CCC, but that doesn’t make things which Mary, herself, says as being above the authority of the church. Private revelations, even if valid, are subject to the authority of the church on Earth.

Abortion (and I assume we are talking about abortion of fertilized human embryos or infants, not of cancerous teratomas, or implanted animal experiments.) is forbidden by the authority of the Catholic Church; both the Eastern, Orthodox, and the Latin/Roman rites at any time. The issue of mortality or immortality of the ensoulment is irrelevant to the fact that the whole church forbids the practice at any time. Nothing that Mary would say in private revelation can over-ride the pastoral authority of the church, let alone their doctrinal teaching authority. In my opinion, any command or revelation to the contrary would have to be dismissed out of obedience to the church.