Everything I've read on this question from the 2nd century forward suggests that you're correct on the bottom line, though there are some expanded implications to the way that words have changed.
The Catholic church never viewed abortion neutrally, but what we understand as abortion has changed. Medical texts and folk practices among women supported many actions that they would have understood essentially as prevention of pregnancy and which we today would understand as abortifacient. Early term abortions are and always have been the majority of abortions, and premodern Catholics had less problem with these than today because they didn't regard them as abortions. This functionally means that the church takes a harder line today regarding women's control of their fertility than it did at some times past.
In context of increasing understanding of biology in the 19th and 20th centuries, church authority decreed that anything after conception is murder. This interpretation of biology is not self evident, however. It involves an application of argumentation to the facts. An alternate history is imaginable where the Catholic church decided differently, whether or not they would be wrong to have done so.
So as you say, the argument must be over whether something is wrong, not over whether the Bible says it's wrong or the Catholic church said it is wrong a long time ago.
Largely agreed, with this caveat: I agree with you that it is not self-evident that abortion is murder, even after the 19th century. However, after the 19th century, it *has* become self-evident that abortion is homicide. (The pro-choicer's case that the homicide is not a murder is plausible, but requires close and clever argument.)
Setting aside the Church's claims to divine guidance, it would have been striking for the Church to rule that intentional homicide of a clear innocent is not murder, especially given their prior commitments. Thus, the timelines where that's even conceivable probably diverge from ours a very long time before the 19th century (before some of those commitments were made).
But such a timeline is nevertheless conceivable! Homicide != murder, so your point stands.
And, yes, point well-taken that the line between contraception and abortion used to be a *lot* blurrier, which led to cases where very early abortion was addressed more leniently than one would expect.
On the other hand, it also led cases where contraception was addressed more harshly than one would expect. Sixtus V's "execute and excommunicate the condom-dealers" decree is perhaps the strongest example of the latter! Without passing sweeping judgments on the past, I am pleased to live in a time where we know so much about what's going on in the human womb.
"Now, by the 18th century, St. Ligouri was able to frankly admit (in Theologia Moralis, Vol. III) that, “th[e] wide disparity between the animation of male and female rests on no solid foundation.”
“Thus, Ligouri took some swings at Aristotle’s theory in his work (though not at Aristotle himself):”
The spelling should be Liguori in these (and other cases), but my larger question is precisely where Liguori said these. Which section of Volume 3 are you referring to for the first? (there are 80 sections to Volume 3, at least the Volume 3 I am looking at--confusingly, some editions of his works number the volumes differently) And where is the second from, which unfortunately offers no volume or section?
Since this is the second or third time, I now feel comfortable saying: if I ever begin spelling St. Alphonsus's surname correctly without someone reminding me in the comments, the most likely explanation is that I have been killed and replaced by an LLM replicant. Please act accordingly. But thank you to everyone who gives the correction regardless.
I coulda sworn I linked directly to the correct page of TM in the article, but obviously I did not, so I'm going to have to go hunt it down again. IIRC, the two quotes were separated by less than one page of the edition I was looking at, but I only vaguely remember this. (I can't even remember for sure if I read it in Latin or in English!) Right now, I haveta go to confession, but I will return to this later!
Resp. Eam infusam esse corpore jam sufficienter formato nempe 30 vel 40 die a conceptione certum est atque multi tenent. Verum probabilius est at que hodie communiter receptum eam infundi in ipso conceptionis momento aut saltem paulo post; anima quippe rationalis est forma plasmativa corporis organici, seu formans organismum humanum. Confirmatur ex festo Immac. Conceptionis BMV. Sententia oppo ad illum præbent sita contendit corpus ante organorum formationem aptum non esse receptioni animæ rationalis sed hoc gratis asseritur et præterea nimis probat cum corpus ope rationum rationalium instrumentum ap tum non exsistat nisi post nativitatem. (n 394 lib 6 n 124 HA tr 14 n 20 Anaclet tr 9 dist 3 n 34 Zallinger Instit jur eccl lib 5 n 161 Roncag tr 17 cap 4 qu 4)
Aristoteles quem Scholastici secuti sunt docuit fætum masculum anima rationali informari die 40 fæmineum vero die 80 et hanc sententiam se quitur forum externum Ecclesiæ quoad incurrendas pænas ecclesiasticas unà ex cepta Ingens tamen illa temporis dispari tas inter animationem maris et fœminæ nullo solido fundamento innixa est.
Looking at the linked work, that isn't Theologia Moralis by Liguori--this is "Theologia Moralis Juxta Doctrinam S. Alphonsus Mariae de Ligorio, Doctoris Ecclesiae" (Moral Theology According to the Doctrine of St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, Doctor of the Church") by a Joseph Aertnys. The title indicates that it's supposed to be a presentation of Liguori's theology, or at least moral theology like his, but isn't the actual work of Liguori.
But, if it's based on Liguori, we could see if Liguori did say something about it or not based on the citations. Unfortunately, I have no idea what "n 394" by itself is supposed to be. The "lib 6 n 124" is almost certainly https://www.google.com/books/edition/Opera_moralia_Theologia_moralis_Ed_novs/Gj02m09yB2IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA109&printsec=frontcover&dq=124 which is from Liguori's Theologia Moralis and discusses the question of baptizing an aborted fetus, and does mention--from what I can get from the Latin, anyway--that it is believed in the present (well, the 18th century when he wrote) that ensoulment occurs at the point of conception or a few days afterwards. This obviously goes against the 30/40 day thing, but he makes no explicit mention of it nor Aristotle. "HA tr 14 n 20" I can figure out is Homo Apostolicus (another thing Liguori wrote) and it's saying Treatise 14 Number 20, which is at https://archive.org/details/homoapostolicusi02ligu_0/page/14/mode/2up or https://www.google.com/books/edition/Homo_apostolicus_instructus_ad_audiendas/yZ3KB2ynRuEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA342&printsec=frontcover and makes similar comments as he did in Theologia Moralis, but again nothing about the days or Aristotle. The rest of the citations appear to be to different moral theology writers other than Liguori (they might make the Aristotle and 30/40 comments, but that might have just been Aertnys's own remarks).
So it looks to me like the quote offered isn't something Liguori said (unless "n. 394" referred to something Liguori wrote, but I don't know what--if it was Theologia Moralis one would expect the book number be cited), but rather Joseph Aertnys's own words in an attempted summary of what a bunch of people, including Liguori, said.
Liguori there takes the *opposite* of the view Aertnys attributes to him: "On the contrary, some have wrongly said that the fetus is animated at the very first instant of conception," and he cites Exodus 21 to that effect, then discusses various views of the ensoulment date before concluding that the Sacred Penitentiary follows the opinion of Aristotle.
You're surely correct about HA = Homo Apostolicus, although this is an interesting bit, since he does take a rather different, or at least considerably more open, view there:
20. — It should be noted, thirdly, that aborted fetuses should always be baptized whenever it is not established that they are devoid of a soul (as should be judged in the case of those who possess no discernible organization of bodily organs). They should, however, be baptized conditionally; especially since among modern experts the opinion is now widely accepted that the fetus is animated either at conception itself, or at least after a few days. (2)
"Secondly, it should be noted that there are various opinions regarding the time at which a fetus is to be judged animated (2). But the most common opinion holds that animation occurs 40 days after conception if the child is male, and 80 days if female. Thus Sylvester, Azor, Elbel, Busembaum, and the Salmanticenses with St. Thomas (3) (who extends it to 90 days for females). And this opinion, says the continuator of Tournely (4), is held by almost all theologians; and he adds, with Navarrus and Sylvius, that it is followed by the Sacred Penitentiary when penalties and irregularities are at issue."
So it seems that Liguourir thought it was at least possible that the fetus is animated "after a few days," but hews close to the well-established canon-law guesses at the animations timeline in legal questions, and does *not* think that ensoulment occurs immediately at conception but rather occurs once a body forms. Of course, we know that a body does form immediately at conception, so it's not entirely clear what he had in mind when he said "conception". (If all he meant was that a child is not formed immediately after ejaculation, he's correct about that.)
Anyhow, I think I've gathered enough to make a correction. Humbling. If you track down the cites to Anacletus Reiffenstuel (?), Jacob (?) Zallinger, and Constantinus (?) Roncaglia, so much the better, but I'm not going to dive into them now.
You're right, "n. 394" was 394 in Book 3 (or Book 4 depending on the edition). For some reason I never thought to check that, even though I have Ryan Grant's English translation of that book (which has some errors but is mostly good) and I could have easily just looked for it there. My guess is that since the other citation called out the book number and this didn't, I assumed that it had to be referring to something else, so I didn't just check to see what 394 said in book 3/4 (the prior books didn't go up to 394).
I'm not sure if Aertnys is necessarily attributing the view to Liguori specifically, as he does cite those other sources. He might have just been trying to offer a compilation of the views. Unfortunately, I don't know how to find those others to see if perhaps they made those statements--a major headache with so many older writings is the fact their citations are often extremely brief to the point of inscrutability.
This is pretty bad history. The Catholic Church has been front-and-center on defending the human rights of the unborn since well before Roe v. Wade.
You are probably thinking of Evangelicals, since many Evangelical denominations *did* take a softer line on abortion until the controversy over Roe pushed them into the pro-life camp in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This frequently draws accusations that Evangelicals only became pro-life to own the libs (because they are Otherized, and the motives of the Other are never presumed to be honest), but it just simply doesn't apply to the Catholic Church, which has consistently considered abortion after conception homicide ever since the 19th-century advent of embryology, and was fighting a (rather lonely) fight against the expansion of abortion in states like New York and California well before there were well-defined political camps on the issue.
Decent article but you are wrong on the Church's position on delayed ensoulment. The Church has never condemned the position. JP2 simply condemned the killing of an unborn human being from the moment of conception which anyone who held to delayed ensoulment would also condemn. Furthermore, just 8 years earlier, the CDF said in Donum Vitae that "the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature [as to the time of ensoulment], but it constantly affirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion." As regards science, I would argue that modern embryology without a doubt supports delayed ensoulment. I recommend you read Damien De Pyle comprehensive defense of delayed ensoulment. https://substack.com/home/post/p-200929187.
The main philosophical argument for delayed hominization is that the rational (intellective) soul, as the substantial form of the human body, can only be infused by God when the matter is sufficiently disposed and proportionate to receive it. According to Thomistic principles, form and matter must be mutually adapted; in the order of generation the imperfect precedes the perfect, so the substantial form is the terminus rather than the principle of the process; and nature does nothing in vain. The soul is defined as the first act of a physical organic body having life in proximate potency—meaning the body must be immediately capable of exercising at least some minimal proper vital operation of that soul (nutrition for vegetative, touch for sensitive, and agent intellect operating on phantasms from the imagination for rational). Since the early embryo at fertilization lacks any developed senses or imagination necessary to produce phantasms, it possesses only a vegetative soul (and later a sensitive soul) through successive imperfect substantial forms that are subsumed into higher ones. Only when the bodily organs (especially the brain and senses) have developed sufficiently for the imagination to function does the matter become properly disposed for the rational soul to be infused.
I generally understand the delayed-hominization argument, I just don't think it's correct (or Thomist). But, again, I'll give De Pyle a chance to speak for himself (link is here in case anyone can't get it from Cassian's comment: https://damiendepyle.substack.com/p/delayed-hominization ). I see De Pyle basically dismisses all discussion of delayed hominization from the latter half of the 20th century as misguided, so I'll have to dig into his reasoning to see whether he's right (and whether that criticism applies to "Aquinas and the Presence of the Human Rational Soul in the Early Embryo"). Philosophically, though, perhaps he's right. There may still be room for discussion that I don't recognize.
Religiously, I don't think there's nearly so much room. It is true that, in Donum Vitae, CDF declined to issue a magisterial ruling on the question of delayed ensoulment. However, it seems straightforward to me that they were holding their fire to allow the Pope to speak. 8 years later, he did. Evangelium Vitae included this apostolic definition:
> Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
It has always appeared to me that the proposition defined here is "Abortion is always the deliberate killing of an innocent human being." If that is so, that seems to wrap it up for delayed hominization. Since a creature without a human soul is not a human being, delayed hominization requires us to hold that abortion does *not* always kill a human being. But the Pope here defines that it does. Therefore, delayed hominization is false by modus tollens.
One could argue that the Pope's definition is *wrong*, but that's perilous, because it bears all the hallmarks of an infallible definition per Pastor Aeternus, and, at the very minimum, it demands religious submission of mind and will. Going to the Latin doesn't seem to provide any escape hatches: "declaramus abortum recta via procuratum, sive uti finem intentum seu ut instrumentum, semper gravem prae se ferre ordinis moralis turbationem, quippe qui deliberata exsistat innocentis hominis occisio."
So it seems to me that the Church has indeed defined that delayed hominization is false, and so all must profess this with divine and Catholic faith -- even if the underlying philosophical debate has not yet been settled to everyone's satisfaction. (I am not your bishop, of course, so, even though I believe the delayed hominization view is technically heretical, I have no authority to bind you to that, and I appreciate your friendly comment in defense of your view.)
Interesting. I would argue the embryo is a human being (it has human DNA and such) but not a person and so delayed hominization is not condemned but that is just my initial thoughts.
"Pope Gregory’s 1891 decree" Wow I didn't know a pope lived for 300 years! ;)
My secret plan revealed! https://imgur.com/sieFM8f
(Gonna go fix this now, thanks.)
I'm suddenly wondering how such an elderly Pope would have responded to modernism and to the unification of Italy!
He would have come down from his golden throne and put down the heresy! First Italy, then the Chaos Gods!
The Pope protects!
Everything I've read on this question from the 2nd century forward suggests that you're correct on the bottom line, though there are some expanded implications to the way that words have changed.
The Catholic church never viewed abortion neutrally, but what we understand as abortion has changed. Medical texts and folk practices among women supported many actions that they would have understood essentially as prevention of pregnancy and which we today would understand as abortifacient. Early term abortions are and always have been the majority of abortions, and premodern Catholics had less problem with these than today because they didn't regard them as abortions. This functionally means that the church takes a harder line today regarding women's control of their fertility than it did at some times past.
In context of increasing understanding of biology in the 19th and 20th centuries, church authority decreed that anything after conception is murder. This interpretation of biology is not self evident, however. It involves an application of argumentation to the facts. An alternate history is imaginable where the Catholic church decided differently, whether or not they would be wrong to have done so.
So as you say, the argument must be over whether something is wrong, not over whether the Bible says it's wrong or the Catholic church said it is wrong a long time ago.
Largely agreed, with this caveat: I agree with you that it is not self-evident that abortion is murder, even after the 19th century. However, after the 19th century, it *has* become self-evident that abortion is homicide. (The pro-choicer's case that the homicide is not a murder is plausible, but requires close and clever argument.)
Setting aside the Church's claims to divine guidance, it would have been striking for the Church to rule that intentional homicide of a clear innocent is not murder, especially given their prior commitments. Thus, the timelines where that's even conceivable probably diverge from ours a very long time before the 19th century (before some of those commitments were made).
But such a timeline is nevertheless conceivable! Homicide != murder, so your point stands.
And, yes, point well-taken that the line between contraception and abortion used to be a *lot* blurrier, which led to cases where very early abortion was addressed more leniently than one would expect.
On the other hand, it also led cases where contraception was addressed more harshly than one would expect. Sixtus V's "execute and excommunicate the condom-dealers" decree is perhaps the strongest example of the latter! Without passing sweeping judgments on the past, I am pleased to live in a time where we know so much about what's going on in the human womb.
"Now, by the 18th century, St. Ligouri was able to frankly admit (in Theologia Moralis, Vol. III) that, “th[e] wide disparity between the animation of male and female rests on no solid foundation.”
“Thus, Ligouri took some swings at Aristotle’s theory in his work (though not at Aristotle himself):”
The spelling should be Liguori in these (and other cases), but my larger question is precisely where Liguori said these. Which section of Volume 3 are you referring to for the first? (there are 80 sections to Volume 3, at least the Volume 3 I am looking at--confusingly, some editions of his works number the volumes differently) And where is the second from, which unfortunately offers no volume or section?
Since this is the second or third time, I now feel comfortable saying: if I ever begin spelling St. Alphonsus's surname correctly without someone reminding me in the comments, the most likely explanation is that I have been killed and replaced by an LLM replicant. Please act accordingly. But thank you to everyone who gives the correction regardless.
I coulda sworn I linked directly to the correct page of TM in the article, but obviously I did not, so I'm going to have to go hunt it down again. IIRC, the two quotes were separated by less than one page of the edition I was looking at, but I only vaguely remember this. (I can't even remember for sure if I read it in Latin or in English!) Right now, I haveta go to confession, but I will return to this later!
Ah! I couldn't resist searching 5 more minutes, and found them both in the same spot: Book III, Tract V, Question 192:
192 Quæstiones QUÆR 1o Quonam tempore fætus animâ rationali infor metur?
Resp. Eam infusam esse corpore jam sufficienter formato nempe 30 vel 40 die a conceptione certum est atque multi tenent. Verum probabilius est at que hodie communiter receptum eam infundi in ipso conceptionis momento aut saltem paulo post; anima quippe rationalis est forma plasmativa corporis organici, seu formans organismum humanum. Confirmatur ex festo Immac. Conceptionis BMV. Sententia oppo ad illum præbent sita contendit corpus ante organorum formationem aptum non esse receptioni animæ rationalis sed hoc gratis asseritur et præterea nimis probat cum corpus ope rationum rationalium instrumentum ap tum non exsistat nisi post nativitatem. (n 394 lib 6 n 124 HA tr 14 n 20 Anaclet tr 9 dist 3 n 34 Zallinger Instit jur eccl lib 5 n 161 Roncag tr 17 cap 4 qu 4)
Aristoteles quem Scholastici secuti sunt docuit fætum masculum anima rationali informari die 40 fæmineum vero die 80 et hanc sententiam se quitur forum externum Ecclesiæ quoad incurrendas pænas ecclesiasticas unà ex cepta Ingens tamen illa temporis dispari tas inter animationem maris et fœminæ nullo solido fundamento innixa est.
EDIT: apologies for the messy text; I copy-pasted from here and did only minimal OCR cleanup: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Theologia_moralis_juxta_doctrinam_S_Alph/fw7EdnCPEX8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=forma+plasmativa+corporis+organici&pg=PA234&printsec=frontcover
Looking at the linked work, that isn't Theologia Moralis by Liguori--this is "Theologia Moralis Juxta Doctrinam S. Alphonsus Mariae de Ligorio, Doctoris Ecclesiae" (Moral Theology According to the Doctrine of St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, Doctor of the Church") by a Joseph Aertnys. The title indicates that it's supposed to be a presentation of Liguori's theology, or at least moral theology like his, but isn't the actual work of Liguori.
But, if it's based on Liguori, we could see if Liguori did say something about it or not based on the citations. Unfortunately, I have no idea what "n 394" by itself is supposed to be. The "lib 6 n 124" is almost certainly https://www.google.com/books/edition/Opera_moralia_Theologia_moralis_Ed_novs/Gj02m09yB2IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA109&printsec=frontcover&dq=124 which is from Liguori's Theologia Moralis and discusses the question of baptizing an aborted fetus, and does mention--from what I can get from the Latin, anyway--that it is believed in the present (well, the 18th century when he wrote) that ensoulment occurs at the point of conception or a few days afterwards. This obviously goes against the 30/40 day thing, but he makes no explicit mention of it nor Aristotle. "HA tr 14 n 20" I can figure out is Homo Apostolicus (another thing Liguori wrote) and it's saying Treatise 14 Number 20, which is at https://archive.org/details/homoapostolicusi02ligu_0/page/14/mode/2up or https://www.google.com/books/edition/Homo_apostolicus_instructus_ad_audiendas/yZ3KB2ynRuEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA342&printsec=frontcover and makes similar comments as he did in Theologia Moralis, but again nothing about the days or Aristotle. The rest of the citations appear to be to different moral theology writers other than Liguori (they might make the Aristotle and 30/40 comments, but that might have just been Aertnys's own remarks).
So it looks to me like the quote offered isn't something Liguori said (unless "n. 394" referred to something Liguori wrote, but I don't know what--if it was Theologia Moralis one would expect the book number be cited), but rather Joseph Aertnys's own words in an attempted summary of what a bunch of people, including Liguori, said.
I am horrified, furious (at myself), and mortified.
Clearly, I will have to write a correction, but it seems I will have to track down each of these citations first.
"n. 394" refers to St. Alphonsus's Theologia Moralis, Caput I Dubium IV, #394, "An aliquando procurare abortum?": https://archive.org/details/theologia_moralis_1-10_1785-alphonsi_de_ligorio/theologia_moralis_1_1785-alphonsi_de_ligorio/page/296/mode/1up?q=%22anima+informata%22
Liguori there takes the *opposite* of the view Aertnys attributes to him: "On the contrary, some have wrongly said that the fetus is animated at the very first instant of conception," and he cites Exodus 21 to that effect, then discusses various views of the ensoulment date before concluding that the Sacred Penitentiary follows the opinion of Aristotle.
You're surely correct about HA = Homo Apostolicus, although this is an interesting bit, since he does take a rather different, or at least considerably more open, view there:
20. — It should be noted, thirdly, that aborted fetuses should always be baptized whenever it is not established that they are devoid of a soul (as should be judged in the case of those who possess no discernible organization of bodily organs). They should, however, be baptized conditionally; especially since among modern experts the opinion is now widely accepted that the fetus is animated either at conception itself, or at least after a few days. (2)
But wait a minute, because back at HA, tract VIII, #22 <https://www.google.com/books/edition/Homo_apostolicus_instructus_ad_audiendas/yZ3KB2ynRuEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=causam%20abortus>, he wrote:
"Secondly, it should be noted that there are various opinions regarding the time at which a fetus is to be judged animated (2). But the most common opinion holds that animation occurs 40 days after conception if the child is male, and 80 days if female. Thus Sylvester, Azor, Elbel, Busembaum, and the Salmanticenses with St. Thomas (3) (who extends it to 90 days for females). And this opinion, says the continuator of Tournely (4), is held by almost all theologians; and he adds, with Navarrus and Sylvius, that it is followed by the Sacred Penitentiary when penalties and irregularities are at issue."
So it seems that Liguourir thought it was at least possible that the fetus is animated "after a few days," but hews close to the well-established canon-law guesses at the animations timeline in legal questions, and does *not* think that ensoulment occurs immediately at conception but rather occurs once a body forms. Of course, we know that a body does form immediately at conception, so it's not entirely clear what he had in mind when he said "conception". (If all he meant was that a child is not formed immediately after ejaculation, he's correct about that.)
Anyhow, I think I've gathered enough to make a correction. Humbling. If you track down the cites to Anacletus Reiffenstuel (?), Jacob (?) Zallinger, and Constantinus (?) Roncaglia, so much the better, but I'm not going to dive into them now.
You're right, "n. 394" was 394 in Book 3 (or Book 4 depending on the edition). For some reason I never thought to check that, even though I have Ryan Grant's English translation of that book (which has some errors but is mostly good) and I could have easily just looked for it there. My guess is that since the other citation called out the book number and this didn't, I assumed that it had to be referring to something else, so I didn't just check to see what 394 said in book 3/4 (the prior books didn't go up to 394).
I'm not sure if Aertnys is necessarily attributing the view to Liguori specifically, as he does cite those other sources. He might have just been trying to offer a compilation of the views. Unfortunately, I don't know how to find those others to see if perhaps they made those statements--a major headache with so many older writings is the fact their citations are often extremely brief to the point of inscrutability.
Not pro choice just give a fuck until quite recently. It's Moral Majority made up nonsense issue to attack woman's rights.
This is pretty bad history. The Catholic Church has been front-and-center on defending the human rights of the unborn since well before Roe v. Wade.
You are probably thinking of Evangelicals, since many Evangelical denominations *did* take a softer line on abortion until the controversy over Roe pushed them into the pro-life camp in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This frequently draws accusations that Evangelicals only became pro-life to own the libs (because they are Otherized, and the motives of the Other are never presumed to be honest), but it just simply doesn't apply to the Catholic Church, which has consistently considered abortion after conception homicide ever since the 19th-century advent of embryology, and was fighting a (rather lonely) fight against the expansion of abortion in states like New York and California well before there were well-defined political camps on the issue.
Decent article but you are wrong on the Church's position on delayed ensoulment. The Church has never condemned the position. JP2 simply condemned the killing of an unborn human being from the moment of conception which anyone who held to delayed ensoulment would also condemn. Furthermore, just 8 years earlier, the CDF said in Donum Vitae that "the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature [as to the time of ensoulment], but it constantly affirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion." As regards science, I would argue that modern embryology without a doubt supports delayed ensoulment. I recommend you read Damien De Pyle comprehensive defense of delayed ensoulment. https://substack.com/home/post/p-200929187.
The main philosophical argument for delayed hominization is that the rational (intellective) soul, as the substantial form of the human body, can only be infused by God when the matter is sufficiently disposed and proportionate to receive it. According to Thomistic principles, form and matter must be mutually adapted; in the order of generation the imperfect precedes the perfect, so the substantial form is the terminus rather than the principle of the process; and nature does nothing in vain. The soul is defined as the first act of a physical organic body having life in proximate potency—meaning the body must be immediately capable of exercising at least some minimal proper vital operation of that soul (nutrition for vegetative, touch for sensitive, and agent intellect operating on phantasms from the imagination for rational). Since the early embryo at fertilization lacks any developed senses or imagination necessary to produce phantasms, it possesses only a vegetative soul (and later a sensitive soul) through successive imperfect substantial forms that are subsumed into higher ones. Only when the bodily organs (especially the brain and senses) have developed sufficiently for the imagination to function does the matter become properly disposed for the rational soul to be infused.
I'll put De Pyle on my list (it's a bit long to read at work), but I see that he relies heavily on Donceel, who was, in my view, simply wrong, for the reasons Dr. Heaney explained here: https://www.scribd.com/document/993042762/TheThomist-AquinasAndThePresenceOfTheHumanRationalSoulInTheEarlyEmbryo?secret_password=wIRFeWzPCFsfWvxM56oj
I generally understand the delayed-hominization argument, I just don't think it's correct (or Thomist). But, again, I'll give De Pyle a chance to speak for himself (link is here in case anyone can't get it from Cassian's comment: https://damiendepyle.substack.com/p/delayed-hominization ). I see De Pyle basically dismisses all discussion of delayed hominization from the latter half of the 20th century as misguided, so I'll have to dig into his reasoning to see whether he's right (and whether that criticism applies to "Aquinas and the Presence of the Human Rational Soul in the Early Embryo"). Philosophically, though, perhaps he's right. There may still be room for discussion that I don't recognize.
Religiously, I don't think there's nearly so much room. It is true that, in Donum Vitae, CDF declined to issue a magisterial ruling on the question of delayed ensoulment. However, it seems straightforward to me that they were holding their fire to allow the Pope to speak. 8 years later, he did. Evangelium Vitae included this apostolic definition:
> Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
It has always appeared to me that the proposition defined here is "Abortion is always the deliberate killing of an innocent human being." If that is so, that seems to wrap it up for delayed hominization. Since a creature without a human soul is not a human being, delayed hominization requires us to hold that abortion does *not* always kill a human being. But the Pope here defines that it does. Therefore, delayed hominization is false by modus tollens.
One could argue that the Pope's definition is *wrong*, but that's perilous, because it bears all the hallmarks of an infallible definition per Pastor Aeternus, and, at the very minimum, it demands religious submission of mind and will. Going to the Latin doesn't seem to provide any escape hatches: "declaramus abortum recta via procuratum, sive uti finem intentum seu ut instrumentum, semper gravem prae se ferre ordinis moralis turbationem, quippe qui deliberata exsistat innocentis hominis occisio."
So it seems to me that the Church has indeed defined that delayed hominization is false, and so all must profess this with divine and Catholic faith -- even if the underlying philosophical debate has not yet been settled to everyone's satisfaction. (I am not your bishop, of course, so, even though I believe the delayed hominization view is technically heretical, I have no authority to bind you to that, and I appreciate your friendly comment in defense of your view.)
Interesting. I would argue the embryo is a human being (it has human DNA and such) but not a person and so delayed hominization is not condemned but that is just my initial thoughts.