Summary |
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The question of whether human life begins at conception is discussed on five tracks: biological life, ensoulment, valuation, individual ethical action, and social/political philosophy. The author presents a developmental position, which corresponds to the delayed animation theory, which was once the predominant view in the church. Appended is a historical inquiry into when the idea that human life begins at conception was first used in an anti-abortion polemic. |
Contents |
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Appendix 1: The terminology of humanity |
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Appendix 2: Athanasius on conditional immortality |
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Appendix 3: First polemical use of 'life begins at conception', including Bibliography |
Years ago, when I was a librarian in a theological seminary, a bright inquiring open-minded student, who made frequent use of my reference services, befriended me; and we had a number of wonderful philosophical conversations. Sometime after he graduated, we lost touch. Suddenly, on January 15th, 2002, he phoned me with a question, which was this: "Who was the first to use the formulation, 'life begins at conception,' in an anti-abortion polemic?" (Actually, that precise wording is mine, including the phrase "anti-abortion polemic," which I put that way because the answer historically precedes the pro-life/pro-choice terminology.) I posted his question to ATLANTIS, the online discussion forum for theological librarians. Several responses were garnered; and I posted my own answer to the forum, which was drawn entirely from my home library and is given below in Appendix 3. All was passed on to my friend.
Yet, quite naturally, he had more questions, for instance, about whether any scientists or theologians make a distinction between fertilization and conception;1-2 and about human interventions that may prevent implantation, like intrauterine devices (IUDs) and the drug, RU 486. During the course of our exchange, he asked for my opinion on the original question, Does life begin at conception? The following is an amplification of my response to him.
References
1 Of the various specialized dictionaries that I checked, most identified conception with successful fertilization of an ovum. However, a sharp distinction is made in The Complete Dictionary of Sexology, Robert T. Francoeur, editor-in-chief (New expanded ed. New York: Continuum, 1995): s. v. conception. It defines conception as "The implantation or 'nidation' of the blastocyst in the uterine endometrium. The term refers in a looser sense to fertilization, the union of the ovum and sperm." A process definition is given in The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine (New York: Random House, 1989): s.v. Conception. It defines conception as "Fertilization of a woman's ovum (egg) by a man's sperm, followed by implantation of the resultant blastocyst in the lining of the uterus."
2 A key point in the theological discussion of the significance of fertilization occurred during Vatican Council II. Regarding the Vatican II passage quoted in Appendix 3, John T. Noonan (1970), who is more fully cited below, wrote: "an amendment, specifically made and adopted, added the words 'from its conception.' In this way the Council sharply marked off the status of the conceptus from the status of spermatozoa and ova" (p. 46). Noonan adds in a note: "The words 'in utero' were struck because of the objection that 'the fertilized ovum, although not yet in the uterus is sacred.' In striking this language, the drafting committee said, 'the time of animation is not touched on'" (n158).
3 I quoted from various medical and sexological dictionaries regarding the IUD and RU 486. Regarding the IUD, the medical community is still unsure of how it works (or was as of my latest information). Regarding the moral issue surrounding the IUD, I quoted from three works, which I happened to have in my home library, from the heyday of moral discussion about it:
- Please Help Me! Please Love Me! [by] Walter Trobisch (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, c1970): p. 38. Trobisch wrote: "There is a great probability that a fertilized ovum is expelled. This brings up a theological question connected with this method. The question is: 'When does life begin?' If we claim that life begins in the moment when the sperm unites with the ovum, it would mean that the I.U.D.'s produce a preclinical abortion. As I said, this cannot be proven, but I know quite a few people whose conscience does not allow them to use this method for this reason."
- "The Intrauterine Contraceptive Device," by Ross L. Willows, in Birth Control and the Christian: A Protestant Symposium on the Control of Human Reproduction, edited by Walter O. Spitzer and Carlyle L. Saylor (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, c1969): pp. [215]-222. Willows strongly doubted that IUDs cause the abortion of fertilized ova and advocated their use, in part as an elegant answer to over-population.
- Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, [by] John T. Noonan, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965): p. 475, note 95. Noonan briefly discussed whether an IUD is an abortifacient or merely a mechanism that changes statistical probabilities, and the different ethical results depending on the conclusion.
You asked for my position with regard to the question of whether human life begins at conception. I summarized my current position on the phone today (January 24th); but let me try again here, so that you have something in writing. (If you wish to share this with anyone else, please ask me first. Thanks.)
I currently think about the issue on at least five tracks: biological life, the soul, valuation, ethical action on the part of the individual, and social/political philosophy. I suppose that I could combine valuation and individual ethical action, since they are intimately connected. But social/political philosophy is also intimately connected to valuation, and I want to draw a sharp distinction between the individual ethical track and the social/political track (which, of course, also entails ethics). I'll deal with each of the five tracks in turn.
It is difficult to find words to express the human being as organism. Individual, person, living soul, man, woman, baby, child, and human being itself -- all such terms connote much more. If I sound cold because of terms like life form, organism, and fetus, that is unintentional and simply a function of the limitations of the English language or, perhaps, of my limitations with regard to it.
Biological life is continuous, speaking retroactively. I say "retroactively" because, of course, lines do die out. This fact teaches us to think in these terms: that present life has backwards continuity with life, in fact all the way back to the beginning of our lifeline on this planet.
However, with regard to humankind (and not humankind alone), there is a point of becoming an individual life form with the potential of becoming a fully developed complex organism. That point occurs with the successful fertilization of an ovum or, to be more precise since fertilization is simply the normal process, when the potential for cell division in the direction of full development as an organism has been activated.
Obviously there is dependency on the mother (or the test-tube stand-in, as the case may be) from that moment right through and generally long after birth. In addition there is physical biological attachment to the mother from the point of implantation in the uterus until birth. So individualness has its mitigations (to paraphrase the Dirty Harry movie line, "A man's got to know his limitations.").
Actually we have two kinds of continuity, one of lineage, the other of analogy to our evolutionary lineage. The expression is, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."1 In other words, the stages of development, from zygote to fetus, are reflective of the stages in our evolutionary past.2
I think of the soul not as some sort of essence supernaturally laid into human beings in either a traducian or creationist way (see below in Appendix 3). I think of it rather as a quality and expression of one's whole being and more (such that it includes, for instance, the sense of selfhood, once developed); but for short I'll speak of it simply as a quality. This quality is incipient at successful fertilization, it moves from potential for humanity to capacity for humanity probably in utero, and it continues to develop right through our lives. (Regarding my use of terms like "humanity," see Appendix 1 below.)
Insofar as a soul participates in Reason (the Logos) through mind and spirituality, then it participates in something that is immortal. Insofar as God opts (in my view from eternity) to sustain and perfect that soul after the flesh has ceased to function, then that soul is sustained and perfected.
I do not see mind and spirituality as being part of the life of the soul prior to the development of the brain; and, insofar as we are talking about a distinctively human mind and spirituality, I do not see them as being part of the life of the soul prior to the development of distinctively human aspects of the brain.
I distinguish different types of values. Among the types of values are absolute values and transcendent values, intrinsic values and humanly imputed values, intrinsic values that are transcendent and intrinsic values that do not rise to the level of transcendence, and actualized values and potential values. When it comes to the question before us, I consider it vitally important to sort out the types of values involved.
First, let me say that I do not understand God as imputing to individual human life, in either the biological or soulful sense, absolute value. If God imputed to biological human life absolute value, then no one would die, yet they do; and no one could be legitimately subject to a death penalty, yet they can be per Genesis 9:6. If God imputed to soulful human life absolute value, then there could be neither eternal annihilation nor divinely meted eternal punishment. So God has not imputed to individual human life in the biological sense absolute value; and that God has imputed absolute value to soulful human life is inconsistent with the views of many Christians about what happens to some after death.
However, neither has God left us wallowing in pure relativity or in a mere clash of egotisms. Rather God has given us the capacity and duty to exercise judgment on human life according to values that are higher than, "transcendent over," our relativities and egotisms. In other words, God has imputed to human life transcendent value.
Second, I see gradations of both intrinsic and humanly imputed value over the course of development from successful fertilization through birth.
I distinguish intrinsic and humanly imputed values, because I do not believe that all values are of subjective origination. In other words, the value of an embryo can be more than that imputed or assigned to it by parents or doctors or other human beings. Just because nobody values an embryo does not mean that that embryo is valueless. It can still have intrinsic value.
However, to make another point, just because an embryo may have intrinsic value, even divinely imputed value, would not automatically mean that it has either absolute or transcendent value in the sense I have here been using those terms. And that's where I come down: Even a zygote has intrinsic value. It is the beginning of the process for the individual life form and carries the instructions and chemicals that may lead to a fully developed human individual by natural means. (Of course, every cell in the human body carries those same instructions, so the "that may lead to" phrase is crucial.) However, a zygote lacks capacity for humanity; and its state is that of a one-celled organism. Its quality of being is severely limited. It's intrinsic value then, may be comparable to that of animals, whose life we are enjoined to respect (Genesis 9:4). Only later does its intrinsic value become transcendent, such that we must first rise completely above ourselves before we can render just judgment with respect to it (cf. Exodus 21:22, with special attention to the Septuagint).
In my view, the fullness of intrinsic value does not kick in until sometime after the distinctively human parts of the brain have developed, but I don't know precisely when that "kicking in" occurs. Conceivably it might even be after birth, particularly if the birth is premature. However, at birth other values kick in, for the child has gone from being biologically connected to the mother and existing solely in one-to-one relationship TO existence in a matrix of broader social relationships, where the understanding is -- the social contract, if you will -- that "I'll take care of you when you're down, if (a presumptive, not a conditional "if"), if you'll take care of me when I'm down" and "to allow killing of one human being blithely is to risk any of us, so let's not allow blithe killing of any of us." Even though this sort of social contract means the human imputation of value to the birthed one, that sort of ethic itself has transcendent value, given the transcendent intrinsic value of those protected by it; and so the child now enjoys transcendent value on an additional basis besides the presumedly already owned intrinsic one.
When it is realized that a birthed child has no essential difference from an unbirthed one of the same age from conception other than having been birthed into a social matrix, the unborn one's potential value of the transcendent sort is clearly recognizable quite apart from what may be the intrinsic value of the fetus. So it seems reasonable to impute transcendent value presumptively to a fetus between the point when the distinctively human aspects of the brain are formed and the rather variable point of natural viability outside the womb, even if we cannot know that the fetus has in fact yet achieved transcendent value. (Note: At Exodus 21:22, the Hebrew Bible, unlike the Septuagint, does not impute transcendent value to the fetus at all.)
On the individual track is this: acting justly out of the faith that doing so, at least collectively and over the long term but hopefully also in the short term, will result in net benefit. Being just entails respecting, weighing, and adjudicating values and acting accordingly. For instance, it means weighing unwanted frozen embryos, which do have a measure of intrinsic value, against the cost of indefinitely long storage. If those resources used for storage were directed elsewhere, lives might be saved or the quality of human life improved; so the conflict of values can be serious. I'm not suggesting that we can have some perfect calculus of values; nevertheless we human beings have the duty to be adjudicators of value.
Now, in my view, disrespecting human life at any stage of development is wrong; treating even zygotes blithely, as if they had no value, is wrong. Competing and at least potentially superseding values are called for to end life deliberately, even at that level. However, those competing and superseding values need not rise to the transcendent value of fully developed human life. They can be lesser values, such as the value of research towards finding a cure for a disease or, maybe, the value of helping to keep over-population in check. After development has reached the level of full intrinsic value, that is with a full capacity (not just potentiality) for humanity, or after the child is born and enters into the social matrix, which includes the social contract of which I spoke, then it becomes wrong to end that life short of a competing transcendent value.
The classic case of a competing transcendent value is when the life or the physical health of the mother is at stake. Each case entails agonizing decisions; but generally I come down on the side of saving the life and physical health of the mother over the fetus, for these reasons:
If the mother herself values the life of the fetus above her own life or health and is willing to sacrifice her own life or health out of healthy motives, despite attempts to persuade her to the contrary, then I would say that the transcendent judgment is hers to make -- not that biological processes always follows human decisions.
With regard to social/political philosophy, I have already spoken to it a bit -- the social matrix and the social contract. The rest has to do with the proper sphere of government and the effect of governmental intervention and simple practicality.
In my view, the law should not cover all that is wrong or teach all that is right. The law is not a substitute for personal morality, and the government is not appropriately the primary font of moral instruction. The law should be limited to what is within the proper purview of government, namely the protection of human and civil rights and the setting of rules to make for a workable social and economic system and a durable eco-system. Now rights may have a positive (as opposed to negative) basis, for instance, a basis in human nature; but, more significantly for our topic is their negative basis: They are in part about the limitation of power -- all kinds of power from personal power to institutional power to governmental power -- and here we're talking primarily about the last, asking: Just what should be the boundaries of governmental power?
I agree with the Catholic Church when it says that it is a duty of government to protect the defenseless (apart from the statism implicit in the statement, which I do not regard as a doctrine that should be taken as universal, and apart from the assumptions regarding church-state relations that form the statement's background, which I regard as deficient); and I have suggested above that, at some point, a fetus probably has the intrinsic value of a fully developed human being. So after that point the fetus counts as a defenseless human being.
However, the question of the extent of a government's duty to protect the defenseless cannot be fully answered until we answer the question of the proper limitation of the exercise of governmental power. Does the government of Monaco have a duty to help a defenseless homeless woman on the Boston Common? No, of course not. Leaving aside the matter of crimes against humanity like state-sponsored genocide, its jurisdiction ends at its borders, although it might jawbone the American government into caring. So does government have jurisdiction inside a woman's body?
Normally speaking, it seems to me that the jurisdiction of government ends somewhere short of a woman's body, that her jurisdiction is inclusive of her own body, that her jurisdiction of her own body is sovereign, and that to impose the law upon what happens inside her body is both a personal violation of her physically and, possibly too, a violation of her conscience.
Now, all-cavity strip searches might be considered comparable personal invasions by government. But a preemptive law that forces women to carry pregnancies to term is neither a social safety pre-condition for a voluntary action nor a "probable cause" intervention in the commission of a crime nor part of a punishment meted out by due process -- the three rational justifications for strip searches.
If a person does not have primary jurisdiction over her (or his) own body, particularly with regard to reproduction, can it be said that she (or he) has any sovereignty or even any jurisdiction at all? If a person has no sovereignty even over her (or his) own body, then is there any such thing as freedom at all? Then is there even any room for moral development apart from the fear motivation? Perhaps not. In fact, it is hard to see how. So there is potential for clash between the intrinsic value of the fetus and the woman's freedom, and that clash is frequently actualized -- in the United States, at the expense of the woman before Roe v. Wade (1973) and at the expense of the fetus thereafter.
It has been said that abortion is a high price to pay for freedom. But the impulse to curtail freedom, which is implicit in that remark, is off the mark. Actually abortion is part of the high cost of immoral decisions within the sovereign jurisdiction of the individual female. And abortion is an agonizing price to pay even when the decision is moral, as when trying to save the life of the mother.
Freedom is, at least in part, where the jurisdiction of the other person or entity ends. However, the jurisdiction of morality is all-inclusive. So I resolve the clash between the intrinsic value of the fetus and the woman's freedom by saying that the fate of a fetus in the womb is under the jurisdiction of the mother and of morality, not of government. As far as the government should be concerned, life begins once that life is permanently outside a woman's body. Before then that life is all potentiality (and worth social investment in pre-natal care). But as far as the woman should be concerned, life begins at conception, at the successful fertilization of the ovum, although it will be a while yet before that life has intrinsic value at the transcendent level.
This doesn't mean that the government must ignore the fate of the unborn altogether. On the contrary, it should regulate the handling of embryos in vitro, for they do have intrinsic plus, perhaps, humanly imputed value. And it could regulate the conditions under which people are allowed to perform abortions to the extent that this can be done without encroaching upon a woman's decisions about what is internal to her. Better, it could create conditions where women would feel affirmed in carrying to term fetuses that have reached a probable point of transcendent value. In my view, whatever is regulated should be at least in part according to the gradations of value of the developing life within.
However, governmental intervention is inevitably with a heavy hand. Fine moral distinctions, agonizing scenarios, and multiplicities of situational factors are lost on it. Sometimes to abort is the right moral decision. Even if government were capable of recognizing that (which maybe it is, sometimes) and were capable of sorting out when abortion is right and when it is wrong in a consistent way (which it is not capable of), its very presence in the decision-making would disturb the timing and so throw off finely calibrated moral and sometimes urgent decisions. In my view, then, the government is best left out of decision-making about abortions that take place within a woman's body and should also give great deference to parental decisions about the disposition of zygotic through fetal human life outside of a woman's body, as in vitro, up to the point of natural viability outside the womb. (Notice, I said "parental," meaning that the onus no longer belongs on the biological mother alone; but that's another issue.)
It is clear that my developmental view of human life and of ensoulment does not fit neatly into any of the polarized camps. To summarize:
My position, which is subject to change, is a middle way that tries to find a maximum rapprochement of all values involved.
The particular way I configure my position may be unique, but it is not foreign to Christianity. Ideas of the soul and its transmission vary widely. (See, for example, the moderate view of Athanasius on the soul, quoted in Appendix 2 below.) So do ideas of the relation of positive law (that is, human-made law) to morality. Furthermore, my developmental view, which entails an onset of transcendent value sometime after conception, corresponds with the delayed animation theory, which was the predominent view of Christian theologians until the 18th Century, this with some biblical warrant. (See Appendix 3 below.) So although I know that many Christians today would decry my position, I feel confident that it does lie within the broad stream of Christianity.
Recently my niece's fiancé asked me what my thoughts were on the image of God. In responding I clarified for him some of my terminology, terminology which I have used with you above. So here's what I said to him:
I avoid using the English term "man" in reference to humankind, since it is so easily misused, frequently leads to philosophical incoherence, and besides is offensive to some in that it suggests to many the subsuming of females. I avoid the term "human race" as well, since in scientific classification we are not a race. So generally:
Speaking this way helps discipline my thought, not that I insist upon absolute consistency from myself.
When you and I were on the phone together, I quoted Athanasius to you. Here is the quotation with my observation upon it, both lifted out of my conversation with my niece's fiancé:
"... upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He [God] bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked -- namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things -- namely, a law and a place."
Reference
Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei (ca. A.D. 318) 3, as translated in St. Athanasius On the Incarnation ..., translated and edited by a religious of C.S.M.V.; with an introduction by C. S. Lewis (New edition, revised. London: A. R. Mowbray, 1953): p. 28
Observation: The rational is assumed to be immortal. However, humankind is not essentially immortal. Immortality is a grace; and, in Athanasius' view, the grace is conditional.
Sent January 16, 2002 and Here Revised
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It was great to hear from you today (January 15th)!
I've been digging around in my home library and not finding a dead-on answer to your question, so I posted the following to an online discussion list for theological librarians:
"This question has been put to me: Who was the first to use the formulation, 'life begins at conception,' in an anti-abortion polemic? The history of the idea is extensive and complex, but does anybody have a dead-on answer with documentation?"
While I'm awaiting responses, let me show you some of what I have been looking at.
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Exodus 21:22-23 (New American Standard Bible, translated from the Hebrew):
"And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life ..."
"If two men fight and strike a woman with child and she miscarry of an embryo, atonement shall be made by a fine. According as the husband of the woman shall with a judicial decision lay upon him, he shall pay: but if the child be completely organized he shall give, life for life ..."1-2
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Apostolic Constitution, Book 7, Section 1, §3:
"Thou shalt not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for 'everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged as being unjustly destroyed' [Exodus 21:23, Septuagint]."
Reference
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, edited, with notes, by James Donaldson, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, editors ; revised by A. Cleveland Coxe; v. 7 (1975 printing): p. 466.
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The Prophetic Scriptures 48:
"Peter says in the Apocalypse, that abortive infants shall share the better fate ..."
The Prophetic Scriptures 50:
"the embryo is a living thing; for that the soul entering into the womb after it had been by cleansing prepared for conception, and introduced by one of the angels who preside over generation, and who know the time for conception, moves the woman to intercourse; and that, on the seed being deposited, the spirit, which is in the seed, is, so to speak, appropriated, and is thus assumed into conjunction in the process of formation.... And the barren are barren for this reason, that the soul, which unites for the deposit of the seed, is not introduced so as to secure conception and generation."
Reference
As quoted in The Encyclopedia of Christianity, v. 1 (1964): pp. 20-21; from: Liturgies and Other Documents of the Ante-Nicene Period (Edinburg, 1872)
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The following quotations and citations are from Noonan (1970), which is fully cited below. I haven't checked all of his references.
"Augustine, commenting on a Latin translation from the Septuagint, observed that at Exod. 21 the question of ensoulment was usually raised, and 'because the great question about the soul is not to be hastily decided by unargued and rash judgment, the law does not provide that the act pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation when it is not formed in flesh and so not yet endowed with sense.'1 This was a distinction accepted out of a cautious agnosticism on ensoulment; both Jerome and Augustine affirmed that, in fact, man did not know when the rational soul was given by God.2
"As far as Jerome and Augustine were concerned, the theoretical distinction led to no difference in moral disapprobation. They simply adopted language broad enough to condemn both contraceptive acts and acts destroying the fetus after conception.3" (p. 15)
"Thomas Aquinas ... was clear that there was actual homicide when an ensouled embryo was killed.1 He was equally clear that ensoulment did not take place at conception.2" (p. 23)
References as Given in Noonan (1970)
1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 2.2.64.8, reply to objection 2.
"A stream of thought ... began in the seventeenth century, without immediate effect but with ultimate significance for the view of abortion. It came from medical doctors versed in philosophy. The title of the first work of the new approach summarizes its content: A Book on the Formation of the Fetus in which It Is Shown that the Rational Soul Is Infused on the Third Day. It was written by a physician at Louvain, Thomas Fienus, and appeared in 1620. A year later there was an even more influential treatise, Medico-Legal Questions, by a Roman physician, Paolo Zacchia. In his learned treatise on medical aspects of the canon and civil laws Zacchia attacked the prevailing interpretation of Aristotle which envisioned the fetus progressing by stages from vegetable ensoulment to animal ensoulment to rational ensoulment. This 'metamorphosis of souls,' he declared, was 'an imaginary thing.' Belief that the rational soul was in fact instilled after forty days rested on no evidence that the rational soul was then in operation; nor could the movement of the fetus have any significance in showing the presence of a rational soul. Those who argued that there was a rational soul at some time in the embryo, but at some time after conception, were thus entangled in 'absurdities' in trying to show the basis of their conviction. On the contrary, a true Thomistic view of the unity of man required that there be a single human soul from the beginning of the existence of a new fetus. The rational soul, Zacchia argued, must be 'infused in the first moment of conception.'1 " (pp. 34-35)
However, "The theory of Zacchia had no immediate impact on the theologians dealing with abortion. He himself in answering objections to his novel proposition agreed that the 'milder' opinion of the canons could be followed as to punishment for abortion of a fetus under forty days; a 'greater injury' was done in killing an older embryo. The theologians themselves were slow to respond to the new arguments. By the eighteenth century Constantino Roncaglia of the Congregation of the Mother of God contended in analyzing the sin of abortion that it was 'most probable' that the fetus was ensouled at the instant of conception or 'at least from the third or seventh day.'2 But the leading moralist of the day, St. Alphonso, declared that 'some say badly' that the soul is infused at conception.3" (pp. 35-36)
"The Christian position as it originated did not depend on a narrow theological or philosophical concept. It had no relation to theories of infant baptism. It appealed to no special theory of instantaneous ensoulment. It took the world's view on ensoulment as that view changed from Aristotle to Zacchia. There was, indeed, theological influence affecting the theory of ensoulment finally adopted, and, of course, ensoulment itself was a theological concept, so that the position was always explained in theological terms. But the theological notion of ensoulment could easily be translated into humanistic language by substituting 'human' for 'rational soul'; the problem of knowing when a man is a man is common to theology and humanism." (p. 51)
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Regarding Thomas Fienus (De Feynes) and Paolo Zacchia, the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1978) comments:
"The opinion of Fienus and Zacchia on immediate animation, although not rejected by the Church, did run into considerable opposition from theologians. It was objected to on three specific grounds: It was contrary to the Scriptures, to the universal opinion of theologians, and to the practice of the Church. It might be surprising that an opinion that had so much authority against it could survive. But the fact is that it did take hold and gradually replaced theories of delayed animation." (v. 1, p. 12, col. [1])
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"For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life -- a ministry which must be fulfilled in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes."
Reference
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965): part 2, chapter 1, §51; as found in: Gonzalez (1967?): pp. 566-567.
According to Noonan (1970), the Vatican II "declaration was the first statement ever made by a general council of the Church on abortion." (p. 46)
According to the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1978):
"The Church has made no positive teaching statement regarding the time of infusion of the human soul, and this is true of Vatican II as well as of earlier documents... The only opinion the Church has condemned is that of Ioannes Marcus, that the human soul is not infused until birth." (v. 1, p. 12)
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The above pinpoints some of the steps in the Roman Catholic development of the idea that "life begins at conception." The Protestant reformers took a somewhat different tack, one which implied the same conclusion. To quote again from the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1978):
"The major reformers -- Martin Luther (1483-1546), Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), and John Calvin (1509-1564) -- were at least as conservative as their Roman Catholic counterparts on the issues of ensoulment and the gravity of abortion. Indeed, some historians ... [George Huntston Williams is mentioned] believe that they indirectly but significantly contributed to the present papal position on the subject.
"The reformers insisted upon the full humanity of the fetus from the time of conception. Their insistence arose, however, less from attention to the abortion issue itself than from their concern about the doctrines of original sin and predestination. Full humanity of the conceptus was believed necessary if the mind and spirit as well as the body of nascent life were to be involved in the consequences of the human Fall." (v. 1, p. 14, col. [1])
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The following three quotations are from Montgomery (1969):
"'Creationism,' or (better) 'concreationism,' is a theological position held by Pelagius, Peter Lombard, St. Thomas,1 the Roman Catholic ordinary magisterium ..., and by most Calvinists.2 This view affirms that God creates souls ex nihilo and supplies them to developing individuals at conception or during the intrauterine period." (p. 76)
"'Materialistic' traducianism holds either that parents generate from inanimate matter not only the body but also the soul of the child, or that the soul is actually contained in the sperm3 and conveyed by organic generation. More attractive by far has been 'spiritual' traducianism, often called 'generationism,' which asserts that the soul of the child derives from the souls of the parents. Augustine4 in opposing the Pelagians and in his insistence on man's total depravity, held to generationism, as did Luther and most theologians influenced by him." (pp. 78-79)
"For the traducianist, it would be absurd to regard the individual as commencing later than conception, for even his soul derives from his parents. For most creationists, the moment of conception is the point when the soul is bestowed." (p. 79)
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The Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1978) discusses a number of proposed answers to the question, When does truly human life begin? For example, it describes this nuanced creationist theory, in which mere conception is inadequate for full human ensoulment:
"Joseph Donceel has based a delayed hominization or delayed animation theory on the Thomistic concept of hylomorphism (viz., there is a complementarity between the material and formal aspects of being.). The form, which in this case is the soul, is received only into matter capable of receiving it. According to Donceel, the insistence on immediate animation in Catholic circles in the last few centuries was based on the erroneous biological theory of preformation and was influenced by a Cartesian dualism. The unity of the human person demands that the bodily or material element be more highly organized in order to receive the truly human form or soul. The fertilized ovum, the morula, the blastula, and the early embryo cannot be animated by an intellectual soul. Donceel concludes that the least that must be present before admitting a human soul is the availability of these organs: senses, the nervous system, the brain, and especially the cortex." (v. 1, p. 18)
Reference Taken from the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1978)
"Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization," by Joseph F. Donceel, Theological Studies; 31 (1970): pp. 76-105.
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Above I quoted from:
It has a useful historical survey, dissection of the abortion issue, and summary of many of the positions. A more recent edition came out in 1995. The recast abortion article from it appears also in:
For another useful survey of the issue, let me refer you to:
Given your interest in Evangelicalism, you may profit as well from the article on abortion in:
Here are full citations of items mentioned in short form above (with Jewett thrown in because of relevance):
January 26, 2002; posted, February 3, 2002; new url, January 28, 2004; last modification, January 28, 2004
Copyright ©2002-2004 by Norman E. Anderson
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