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 | "What could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: 'Thou shalt not kill.' " Pope Pius XI commenting on abortion in his encyclical on Christian Marriage 1930-DEC-31. 1 |
A brief history:
Many religions, including many denominations within Christianity, have adopted the general principle that abortion is a form of murder if it is performed at or after the time that a soul enters the body of an embryo or fetus. Down through the ages, beliefs varied about when this "animation" happened.
Various church authorities and popes placed the time at:
| At a specific time into pregnancy (40 days, 80 days, 116 days), or |
| Quickening (when the woman first feels the fetus move), or |
| At conception. |
The latter is the current church teaching.
The Catholic Church has consistently taught that abortion -- at any stage of development -- is evil. However, its stance has changed down through the years on whether a given abortion is murder. John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, wrote:
"Pope Paul Vl declared that the teaching of the Church about the morality of abortion 'has not changed and is unchangeable.' Although some people point out that Saint Thomas Aquinas thought the soul did not come to the fetus ('ensoulment') until sometime after conception, the fact is that he considered abortion gravely sinful even before this time. He taught that it was a 'grave sin against the natural law' to kill the fetus at any stage, and a graver sin of homicide to do so after ensoulment." 2
A brief timeline:
| Circa 100 to 150 CE: The Didache (also known as "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles"), was a document written for the guidance of Christians. It forbade all abortions. |
| Prior to 380 CE: Many Christian leaders issued unqualified condemnations of abortion. So did two church synods in the early 4th century: | ||||
| Circa 380 CE: The Apostolic Constitutions allowed abortion if it was done early enough in pregnancy. But it condemned abortion if the fetus was of human shape and contained a soul. | ||||
| St. Augustine (354-430 CE) accepted the Aristotelian Greek Pagan concept of "delayed ensoulment". He wrote that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. 3 Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated). | ||||
| Pope Innocent III (1161-1216):
| ||||
| Pope Sixtus V (1588) issued a Papal bull "Effraenatam" which threatened those who carried out abortions at any stage of gestation with excommunication and the death penalty. | ||||
| Pope Gregory XIV (1591) revoked the previous Papal bull and reinstated the "quickening" test, which he determined happened 116 days into pregnancy (16½ weeks). | ||||
| Pope Pius IX (1869) dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus." The soul was believed to have entered the pre-embryo at conception. | ||||
| Leo XIII (1878-1903):
| ||||
| Canon law was revised in 1917 and 1983 to refer simply to "the fetus." The church penalty for abortions at any stage of pregnancy was, and remains, excommunication. |
Related essays in this web site:
| Abortion: all aspects; all points of view | ||||
| Pagan & Christian beliefs 400 BCE -1980 CE
| ||||
| Jewish beliefs about abortion |
References:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- Pope Pius XI, "Christian Marriage," 1930-DEC-31 at: http://www.vatican.va/
- John Cardinal O'Connor, "Abortion: Questions and Answers," Priests for Life, at: http://www.priestsforlife.org/
- St. Augustine, "On Exodus", (21, 80)
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Copyright © 1997 to 2007 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally posted: 1997
Latest update: 2007-JUL-29
Author: B.A. Robinson
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