By Abril Palomino
Catholicism has been around for millennia; it would just be obvious to assume it has adapted to the moral and social norms of each period.
The First Millennium
There aren’t many references to abortion in the Old or the New Testament. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The book of Exodus, verse 21, mentions a set of laws the Israelites must live by and the consequences of not abiding by them. Here, we learn that, for the Old Testament, abortion is only punished with a fee, while homicide is punishable with death.
James Rachels, author of The Elements of Moral Philosophy, claims that there’s a passage in the Old Testament that’s commonly quoted and completely taken out of context to argue that God blesses the immediate product of conception. However, the complete passage doesn’t actually talk about conception, embryos, or even products.
The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 1:5-8)
Some registers claim that, in the first century, abortion was highly condemned, but that in the third-century, things changed. For instance, abortion was only punished if conception had occurred out of wedlock or as the result of adultery. However, it was fine if a married couple decided not to bring more children to the world.
In the first years of Christianity (300 AD), it was believed that an embryo only had a soul 45 days after conception. This is according to Augustine of Hippo, one of the most prominent bishops and thinkers of his time. In his Treatises on the Gospel of John and in On the Nature of the Soul and its Origin, Augustine makes the distinction between an embryo and a fetus. For him, fetuses were entities lacking a soul, shape, and movement while fetuses did had a soul. The abortion of a fetus was considered homicide, but aborting an embryo didn’t warrant any punishment.
Distinctions in Pregnancy Stages
Centuries later, in the thirteenth century, Saint Bonaventure wrote in his In sententias that an abortion is possible before the fetus is developed. Adding to that idea, Saint Albert the Great claimed that the soul is given by God to men forty days after birth, and to women, after ninety.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, a priest and philosopher, follower of Aristotle, came to the conclusion that the human embryo lacked a soul and that the latter was only provided by God the moment the human body was created. In his own words, “the soul is not infused before the formation of the body.” This means that without a fully-developed human body, there is no recipient for the soul.
In his History of Animals, Aristotle says that women don’t contribute with a seed or an egg during human conception. Her work is to offer the menses that will later work as the material that together with the sperm will form life. This Aristotelian theory was highly accepted for centuries among scholars and doctors, and Thomas Aquinas was one of many who worked on the idea.
According to Aquinas, conception is fully achieved when the product receives the soul, that is, when the body is fully formed, and as we’ve seen that’s after forty days for men and ninety for women, all this based on Hippocrates and Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas considered the abortion of an embryo as a reversible process to conception, and for that reason condemnable, however, not on the same level as homicide.
Scientific Developments Vs. Moral Impositions
By 1312, through some primitive microscopes, scientists assured that embryos were tiny, articulated, human-shaped beings they named “homunculus.” Pope Clement V determined that if embryos already had a human shape, it was a sin to murder them.
Over time, and thanks to the scientific and technological developments, new tools improved the anatomical, biological, and medical study of human beings, to the point that we now know that Thomas Aquinas’ conclusions on embryos were actually accurate. Embryos are a group of cells that eventually evolve and form the human body.
However, back then, the Catholic Church thought that these ideas contrasted with their beliefs and moral standards, and decided to ignore them. In 1869, Pope Pius IX dictated that embryos did have a soul since human conception, and thus abortion was forbidden, and punishable with excommunication (leaving aside actual legal punishment).
James Rachels concludes his book with an important thought: the ecclesiastical tradition, including scripture, is constantly reinterpreted by each generation to support their own moral values. Naturally, as Rachels adds, abortion is just one example of how we manipulate words to decide what’s right and wrong, according to our standards.
Translated by María Isabel Carrasco Cara Chards
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