Abortion Issue Hits The work Scene

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Socrates' date='May 24 2005, 02:45 PM'] Note I said "a distinct, living [b]human [/b] being."

A chimpanzee is not a human being.
A human fetus/embyo is human.  A chimpanzee fetus/embryo is a chimpanzee.

How about a "littleles" of this monkey business, and a little more addressing the point!

The soul is defined as the form or "life principle" of a living thing.  If a being is alive it has a soul.  The embryo is alive, and no scientist would deny this fact.  Therefore, it has a soul.  It is a living human being.  Face the facts, Littleles!  (though I know that is hard for you!)

And the Church has indeed always taught that abortion is a grave sin.  The question, was when this sin was murder, and when it was something else.
Jerome and Augustine were not speaking infallibly here.
The Church has never taught abortion to be acceptable.

That whole issue concerned "quikening" - it was thought that before the fetus could be felt to move around, it was not yet alive.  WIth modern medical technology, we now know better.

And between us, and everyone reading the Church does indeed teach and speak through the magisterium!  When the Pope proclaims dogma. [/quote]


(1) The term human or simian are subdivisions of primate. There is a minor genetic and chromosomal difference.

(2) Your insistance on the term "human" seems to be an attempt to presuppose personhood even in individual single cells. There is absolutely no evidence that personhood occurs at fertilization. That's only the preconception of a belief system, and is contrary to Catholic scholastic philosophy which insists on individualization as a precondition for personhood.

Are you aware of the difference between an animal soul (as in chimpanzee) and a human soul eventually included in a human being after its purely animal soul? Even Aquinas recognized that succession.

(3) I'm addressing precisely the point. Even the Church's scholastic concepts as well as its earlier teaching do not accept the theory of "immediate animation."

(4) Please note that "the life principle" also animates the human cells that I might extract from myself and grow in culture. Are you now claiming that these automatically possess an immortal soul and are in need of baptism? They are unquestionably alive (ie possess an animal soul) and are unquestionably human

(5) Jerome and Augustine were reflecting the thinking of their time the same as we are reflecting the thinking of our time. (Did you ever notice the claims for an "infallible" church teaching or even an ordinary church teaching disappear once the error is recognized? )

What I disproved was the assertion that the Church had "always taught" that abortion was wrong. I was not arguing the rightness or wrongness of Jerome's and Augustine's teachings. Just the fact.

(6) On the contrary, fundamentally we don't "know better" at all. All we have is a better understanding of the biology involved. But if the concept that a complete chromosome set in a living cell is the same as ensoulment is correct, then all our tissue cultures have individual immortal souls and need to be baptized!

(7) And I have already demonstrated that the magisterium can be in error, as in its approval of the moral legitimacy of slavery based on its interpretation of scripture and the natural law. (And the earth does move around the sun no matter what the magisterium tells you. )

LittleLes

Edited May 25, 2005 by LittleLes

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 24 2005, 09:42 PM']There is absolutely no evidence that personhood occurs at fertilization.[/quote]
Personhood is a legal construct! How can one show evidence of personhood? And if you want to restrict the legal personhood of some group, how hard is it to simply massage your definition until it excludes those who you don't want?

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 24 2005, 09:42 PM']That's only the preconception of a belief system, and is contrary to its own scholastic philosophy which insists on individualization as a precondition for personhood.[/quote]
It sounds like you're trying to convince us with a preponderance of SAT words. Speaka da English, pleeze.

Edited May 25, 2005 by Mateo el Feo

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' date='May 24 2005, 09:19 PM'] Personhood is a legal construct!  How can one show evidence of personhood?  And if you want to restrict the legal personhood of some group, how hard is it to simply massage your definition until it excludes those who you don't want?


It sounds like you're trying to convince us with a preponderance of SAT words.  Speaka da English, pleeze. [/quote]
(1) Scholastic philosophy is the philosphical system used by the Church. It is system taught in seminaries and other Catholic institutions.

(2) A rational individual is a person. Personhood is NOT solely a legal construct.

(3) Since the immaterial soul is said to be created by God, it is not the result of a biological (material) action of the parents, as would be the "animal" soul. Therefore, the claim that as soon as there is a genetically complete cell of the human species, there is an immortal soul is unfounded.

If one claims that there is ensoulment automatically is this case, then each somatic (skin) cell containing a nucleus which has a complete set of human chromosomes and can be cloned automatically has an immortal soul.

(4) And again quoting Fr. Karl Rahner ,SJ: "It cannot be inferred from the Church's dogmatic definitions that it would be contrary to faith to assume that the leap to spirit-person happens only during the course of the embryo's development. No theologian would claim the ability to prove that interrupting pregnancy is in every case the murder of human being.

(5) And I don't want to put Socrates on the spot, but if he has a "magisterial" teaching claiming immediate ensoulment of the zygote, which evidently Rahner didn't know about, perhaps he will share it with us.

Edited May 25, 2005 by LittleLes

[Mateo el Feo]

I didn't have any trouble with the individual SAT words. It was the way that you threw them together that didn't make sense.

[quote name='LittleLes'](4) And again quoting Fr. Karl Rahner ,SJ: "It cannot be inferred from the Church's dogmatic definitions that it would be contrary to faith to assume that the leap to spirit-person happens only during the course of the embryo's development. No theologian would claim the ability to prove that interrupting pregnancy is in every case the murder of human being.[/quote]
Well, I've already quoted St. Augustine. That's the little-known theologian you quoted earlier. Some claim him to be a doctor, though I don't know if his teachings are as great as the wise Fr. Rahner. LOL
[quote name='St. Augustine' date=' On Marriage, Book 1, Chaper 17']Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or; if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born.[/quote]
([url="http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-05/npnf1-05-27.htm#P3936_1489853"]link[/url])

He speaks of offspring that is "advancing to life." We know that cell division begins to happen (i.e. advancing to life) immediately after the sperm and ovum meet. This "advancing to life" begins even before implantation. If the embryo isn't a person, then why would St. Augustine describe it as being "slain"?

Regardless of the definition of "person," science does prove that human life begins at the moment of conception. The only question occurs when pro-abortion lawyers want to restrict the definition of "person" to exclude pre-born children. This was the same way that blacks and Jews were stripped of their personhood.

[quote name='LittleLes']If one claims that there is ensoulment automatically is this case, then each somatic (skin) cell containing a nucleus which has a complete set of human chromosomes and can be cloned automatically has an immortal soul.[/quote]
Ignoring this comparison, legal "personhood" is not dependent on the presence of an immortal soul. If you can find a legal document (from USA) that refers to the presence of an immortal soul as a determinant for the status of "personhood," I'd like to see that document.

Atheists deny the presence of an immortal soul at all stages of life. So does that mean that no human being is a person to them?

[quote name='LittleLes'](2) A rational individual is a person. Personhood is NOT solely a legal construct.[/quote]
Personhood of undesireable human beings is only seriously questioned in the legal realm. But, for a more complete definition of the term in the philosophical realm, [url="http://www.lifeprinciples.net/MessagePersonhood.html"]see this link from LifePrinciples.net[/url].

[Socrates]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 24 2005, 08:42 PM']

(1) The term human or simian are subdivisions of primate.  There is a minor genetic and chromosomal difference.

(2) Your insistance  on the term "human" seems to be an attempt to presuppose  personhood even in individual single cells. There is absolutely no evidence that personhood occurs at fertilization. That's only the preconception of a belief system, and is contrary to Catholic scholastic philosophy which insists on individualization as a precondition for personhood.

Are you aware of the difference between an animal soul (as in chimpanzee) and a human soul eventually included in a human being after its purely animal soul? Even Aquinas recognized that succession.

(3) I'm addressing precisely the point. Even the Church's scholastic concepts as well as its earlier teaching do not accept the theory of "immediate animation."

(4) Please note that "the life principle" also animates the human cells that I might extract from myself and grow in culture. Are you now claiming that these automatically possess an immortal soul and are in need of baptism? They are unquestionably alive (ie possess an animal soul) and are unquestionably human

(5) Jerome and Augustine were reflecting the thinking of their time the same as we are reflecting the thinking of our time. (Did you ever notice the claims for an "infallible"  church teaching or even an ordinary church teaching disappear once the error is recognized? ) 

What I disproved was the assertion that the Church had "always taught" that abortion was wrong. I was not arguing the rightness or wrongness of Jerome's and Augustine's teachings. Just the fact.

(6) On the contrary,  fundamentally we don't "know better" at all. All we have is a better understanding of the biology involved. But if the concept that a complete chromosome set in a living cell is the same as ensoulment is correct, then all our tissue cultures have individual immortal souls and need to be baptized!

(7) And I have already demonstrated that the magisterium can be in error, as in its approval of the moral legitimacy of slavery based on its interpretation of scripture and the natural law. (And the earth does move around the sun no matter what the magisterium tells you. )

LittleLes [/quote]
(1) More evasive monkey business unrelated to the topic of abortion.

(2) The human fetus is a human. What other species is it? It is alive and it is human, therefore, it is a human being. Apparently, you want to try the common trick of applying other criteria for personhood, claiming that some human beings are not persons.

(3) You're dodging the issue. Where does the Church teach that abortion is morally acceptable? (Why you should even care what Catholic teaching on this is is beyond me, as you flatly reject the teaching of the Catholic Church, and even of basic Christianity!)
A fetus is alive (therefore animated).

(4) These cells do not naturally grow into an adult human being.

(5) Neither Jerome nor Augustine condoned abortion, but regarded it as abominable.

Jerome:

"I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).

(6) We know that the embryo is a distinct living creature with its own set of dna (distinct from the mothers), and soon after its own blood type (sometimes distinct from mother's), its own beating heart, its own brainwaves. It is a living human person, not a part of the mother's body. To deny this is to be wilfully blind. (something you seem to specialize in, Littleles!)

(7) As usual, you evade the issue, by turning your post into another tired and irrational rant against the Church. You have demonstated no such thing and have been reputedly shown to be wrong about this. For a refutation, [url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907fea2.asp"]read this.[/url]

Again, at what time does a human being's existance begin according to you?

Edited May 25, 2005 by Socrates

[Norseman82]

[quote name='KobeScott8' date='May 23 2005, 09:09 AM'] But any advice could be useful. [/quote]
My advice is to carry around a picture of an aborted baby and if you can't get in a word edgewise, show them the picture.


In the breakroom, of course....

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Socrates' date='May 25 2005, 11:57 AM']

The human fetus is a human. What other species is it? It is alive and it is human, therefore, it is a human being. Apparently, you want to try the common trick of applying other criteria for personhood, claiming that some human beings are not persons.

(3) You're dodging the issue. Where does the Church teach that abortion is morally acceptable? (Why you should even care what Catholic teaching on this is is beyond me, as you flatly reject the teaching of the Catholic Church, and even of basic Christianity!)


(5) Neither Jerome nor Augustine condoned abortion, but regarded it as abominable.

Jerome:

"I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).

We know that the embryo is a distinct living creature with its own set of dna (distinct from the mothers), and soon after its own blood type (sometimes distinct from mother's), its own beating heart, its own brainwaves. It is a living human person, not a part of the mother's body. To deny this is to be wilfully blind. (something you seem to specialize in, Littleles!)

[/quote]
(1) It's alive! It's human. Therefore, it is a human being! True, but not yet a person.

My skin cells are alive and human also. And they each have the same genetic content of the embryo. Does that make each of them a person?

(2) And again the "unique DNA, " therfore an individual person argument. What about identical twins (monozygotes) which have the same DNA? Do they share a soul?

(3) It appears that both Augustine and Jerome were ambivalent on the question of abortion as we know it.

Augustine tells us that no soul can live in an unformed body, so there can be no talk of murder in the case of early abortion. (see On Exodus 21,80). And Jerome tells us in his Epistle 121,4 that "The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired there external appearance and their limbs."

(4) The Church did not teach that abortion was murder in all cases. Please note that until 1917, canon law did not proscribe excommunication for abortions performed before the 80 day following conception, because the traditional teaching claimed ensoulment occured at day 40 for the male and day 80 for the female. Since the sex of the products of conception could not be determined, the presumption was that murder was unprovable.

[Aloysius]

yeah, before we specified it as murder it was a sexual sin. it's still always and everywhere evil.

this is a matter of scientific error in the past. Aquinas et al. believed we started out in the womb as a vegetable, became an animal, and then became a human. we obviously know nowadays that every detail is already determined by the genetic information contained in the embryo and as such can say with Turtullian "He who will be man is man already".

before then it was a sexual sin on the same par as contraception, always taught to be evil. it was given allowances baseed on faulty scientific understanding.

now it is considered murder because scientific knowledge advances and we realize that the entirety of the human person is contained within the embryo, the only thing needed is nutrition to make it develop. well, that's us in a nutshel, our entire human person exists here and the only thing needed to make us grow into the next stage is nutrition.

if we started out as vegetables, it would not be murder to abort; Aquinas et al. were thus correct. if we were animals, there would be no murder in aborting;p Aquinas et al. were thus correct. Scientific advances show that from the moment of the embryo the entirety of the physical human person is contained within genetic information and thus at that point we are human, not vegetable or animal.

[jmjtina]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 25 2005, 09:54 PM'] (1) It's alive! It's human. Therefore, it is a human being! True, but not yet a person.

My skin cells are alive and human also. And they each have the same genetic content of the embryo. Does that make each of them a person?

[/quote]
The skin cells are [u][i]human[/i][/u] skin cells.

It is not a human.

What makes a human a person then?

[jmjtina]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='May 25 2005, 10:07 PM'] now it is considered murder because scientific knowledge advances and we realize that the entirety of the human person is contained within the embryo, the only thing needed is nutrition to make it develop. well, that's us in a nutshel, our entire human person exists here and the only thing needed to make us grow into the next stage is nutrition.

[/quote]
here here.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 25 2005, 11:54 PM'](3) It appears that both Augustine and Jerome were ambivalent on the question of abortion as we know it.[/quote]
Or, maybe they weren't ambivalent, and you shouldn't put blind faith in the reliability of ReligiousTolerance.org.

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 25 2005, 11:54 PM'](4) The Church did not teach that abortion was murder in all cases. Please note that until 1917, canon law did not proscribe excommunication for abortions performed before the 80 day following conception, because the traditional teaching claimed ensoulment occured at day 40 for the male and day 80 for the female. Since the sex of the products of conception could not be determined, the presumption was that murder was unprovable.[/quote]
Consider that the technology to detect early pregnancies before 1917 was not where it is today. Also, there were not abortion factories killing tens of millions of babies each year.

Anyway, bringing up the issue of excommunication is just a diversionary tactic. Excommunication or not, the reality of the grave sin of any abortion is clear all the way back to the Didache. You simply can't change Christian history with a couple misquotes from Early Church Fathers...especially when these two Fathers were so clearly opposed to both abortion and even artificial birth control.

Finally, there was no acceptance of first trimester abortion because of 40/80 day ensoulment. ReligiousTolerance.org's own quote of St. Jerome shows him describing the use of artificial birth control (i.e. drinking potions) as the murder of a child not yet conceived.

To believe that Christian moral teachings viewed early-term abortions as moral or even merely "less immoral" than late-term abortions is just incorrect.

[ardillacid]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='May 24 2005, 08:42 PM']

(7) And I have already demonstrated that the magisterium can be in error, as in its approval of the moral legitimacy of slavery based on its interpretation of scripture and the natural law. (And the earth does move around the sun no matter what the magisterium tells you. )

LittleLes [/quote]
Littleles-

I know we've gone over this before. Magisterium never declared the earth to be the center of the universe. I don't know if you know what the Magisterium is, but how about I give you a couple clues: it isn't the theologians of the Holy Office, and it isn't 6 cardinals signing a condemnation of Galileo .

I have seen how you argue. If the opposition makes a point you cannot defend you completely ingore them, go off on tangents, and attack from a different angle to cover your bare ass.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='May 25 2005, 11:07 PM']
now it is considered murder because scientific knowledge advances and we realize that the entirety of the human person is contained within the embryo, the only thing needed is nutrition to make it develop. well, that's us in a nutshel, our entire human person exists here and the only thing needed to make us grow into the next stage is nutrition.

[/quote]
No. A person doesn't exist before the infusion of an immaterial immortal soul. This is an action of God, not a stage in embryotic development, which is basically the same as that in the primate.

Thus the "entirety of the human person" is not present in the embryo.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='jmjtina' date='May 25 2005, 11:43 PM'] The skin cells are [u][i]human[/i][/u] skin cells.

It is not a human.

What makes a human a person then? [/quote]
Hi,

The presence of an immaterial rational soul makes a human person. I believe this has always been the Church's teaching. No soul, no person.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' date='May 25 2005, 11:47 PM'] Or, maybe they weren't ambivalent, and you shouldn't put blind faith in the reliability of ReligiousTolerance.org.


Consider that the technology to detect early pregnancies before 1917 was not where it is today. Also, there were not abortion factories killing tens of millions of babies each year.

Anyway, bringing up the issue of excommunication is just a diversionary tactic. Excommunication or not, the reality of the grave sin of any abortion is clear all the way back to the Didache. You simply can't change Christian history with a couple misquotes from Early Church Fathers...especially when these two Fathers were so clearly opposed to both abortion and even artificial birth control.

Finally, there was no acceptance of first trimester abortion because of 40/80 day ensoulment. ReligiousTolerance.org's own quote of St. Jerome shows him describing the use of artificial birth control (i.e. drinking potions) as the murder of a child not yet conceived.

To believe that Christian moral teachings viewed early-term abortions as moral or even merely "less immoral" than late-term abortions is just incorrect. [/quote]
What does "Religious Tolerance" have to do with the writings of St. Augustine and St. Jerome?

And incidently less than half of the fertilized ova implant and go on to develop. So if you are talking about just numbers, spontaneous abortions far far outnumber clinical abortions.

Do you think that they did away with Limbo because of overcrowding?

Before you argue further, you had better give us your definition of abortion. Do you consider the loss or an embryo which fails to implant abortion? If not why not?