What deceitfully select history we have here. What follows is a variety of comments from some noted ancient sources.
“Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill him when born.” Didache 2.2 (c.50-100 AD)
“The (Mosaic) law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child by destroying a living creature and diminishing human kind.” Josephus, Against Apion 2.25 (c. 80 AD)
“The embryo therefore becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion, inasmuch as there exists already the rudiment of a human being which has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother.” Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul 37 (c. 200 AD)
“If men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follow, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows (the death of mother or child), then you shall give life for life.” Exodus 21:22, 23
“You shall not abort a child, nor again, commit infanticide.” Letter of Barnabas 19.5 (c.130 AD)
Then there’s the science: The fetus is genetically different from the mother. Why doesn’t the maternal immune system reject it, as it ordinarily would reject something genetically different? Because in this case the maternal immune system actually prevents such rejection.
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteThe single Bible quote you have is a stretch of a translation. Here's the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims on that, which you may call a stretch, but it is a Catholic one:
Exodus 21:22 If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child, and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman's husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award. 23 But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life. 24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
In the first case, verse 22, the miscarriage takes place because the woman was injured by the criminal, but the woman lives. When this happens, the husband names the penalty, what will make him whole, as we say. So the loss of the unborn to the husband is not the loss of life, but the loss of how he was building a family. This by itself does not mean that the Catholic Bible is saying that there has not been ensoulment. It is saying that the husband (even society) did not lose a life it never knew, yet suffered a loss indeed. The problem is, that if the wife dies as verse 23 says, then it is life for a life. That's different. Having that difference is an argument against ensoulment taking place in the womb, that it is at first breath according to what the Bible teaches.
When ensoulment takes place is a mystery. It's all a matter of how the translation into English goes. In this case, the Catholic translation seems to be a great argument for abortion to be okay. Yet your translation is the opposite. This is like Numbers 5, where the cuckold brings his wife to a priest. Some translations indicate the priest is having the wife drink a concoction that will cause miscarriage. In this case, the Douay says no such thing, only indicates that she will become sick if and only if she had been unfaithful. It shows sickness as punishment being the purpose of the visit to the priest. (I'm against such torture.)
Scientifically speaking too, ensoulment is a mystery. It causes no chemical reaction, you cannot see a soul interacting with the world under a microscope. Scientists look at the body. You mention that the fetus is genetically different from the mother's DNA profile. That says nothing about ensoulment. A bullet is different from the woman who has been shot with it. It is her choice to have it taken out.
Looking at your other citations, they simply show how many thought of ensoulment as taking place sometime in the womb way back when. But the issue in the Catholic church was still up in the air. Two thousand years from now, people may be quoting you as a Catholic who asserted abortion is the taking of human life.
It's time for the pope to come out and say that it is a mystery.
I do believe that the Bible is the sole deposit of faith. I am a Catholic. The Catholic Church holds that the deposit of faith consists of both Scripture and tradition. I just cited examples from the latter along with one from Exodus, which I believe is in the Bible). Along with a bit of up-to-date science.
ReplyDeleteHi Frank,
ReplyDeleteBy the way, not being a member, I could not read the article.
The traditions that the Catholic church settled on as supporting their views, are simply that, non-Christian traditions or philosophies that supported the idea that ensoulment takes place. The church as a whole, taking a position on the matter, did not settle on accepting those traditions as supportive until centuries later.
The scripture that you quoted, though, in the Catholic version, does not support what you want it to. It is an argument against ensoulment in the womb. The science has nothing to do with anything other than to say that the unborn can be considered separate from the woman's body, since the genetic make-up is different. It does nothing to support the existence of a soul in whatever it is that is separate. Indeed, there are traditions in which women do not have souls. Science has nothing to say about it. But we accept that they do. Indeed, I accept that you do.
That's the trick. There has to be acceptance that there is a human being to save, before abortion can be illegal. There needs to be a Constitution amendment stating that we in the US consider any abortion or induced miscarriage to indeed be murder, because we accept all unborn as human life. The person at conception is as soulfully human as the old woman of 120. (And then we enter the discussion of whom should be saved, the viable unborn baby, or the mother, if only one can be saved.)
The argument of ensoulment, even within the church, will never be won by anyone who takes one side or the other. Because, it is a mystery. It is unprovable either way. It's not argument that is needed, but acceptance by enough people inside and outside the Catholic church that is needed for such an amendment to come about. Arguing for or against will always be futile, always has been, always will be.
The Catholic church can lead this by bringing out why as an organization, taking the ensoulment mystery into consideration, with a world of traditions and philosophies that went both ways, it decided to counsel against abortion.
The passage I quoted from Exodus specifically refers to "a woman with child,:: and goes on to say that "if any harm follows (the death of mother or child), then you shall give life for life.” I think that is pretty clearly a prohibition of abortion. I was also ubder the impression impression that God ensouls us conception, since he creates us from the beginning. You are certainly entitled to your beliefs. So is Garry Wills. But Wills doesn't have the right to call them Catholic, especially since for a while he studied for the priesthood. He has devised an ersatz Catholicism to explain away his failures as aCatholic.Like Wills, as I think I gave said elsewhere, I also studied what we Catholics call Sacred Theology. I think I know the tenets of my faith.
ReplyDelete