Sorry for the delay in getting back with you. I noticed few red flags in reading this blurb so I contacted a Catholic apologist to confirm my suspicions. First the article has some connection with Planned Parenthood. Second, I know the Didache, which was written late-1st/early-2nd century prohibits abortion.Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/
Laws that prohibit absolutely the practice of abortion are a relatively recent development. In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90 days. Not until 1588 did Pope Sixtus V declare all abortion murder, with excommunication as the punishment. Only 3 years later a new pope found the absolute sanction unworkable and again allowed early abortions. 300 years would pass before the Catholic church under Pius IX again declared all abortion murder. This standard, declared in 1869, remains the official position of the church, reaffirmed by the current pope.
I believe thee was a period of time when the point of animation was important in determining whether is was considered murder by the Church.
However, I will defer to your much better understanding of Catholicism and abandon any more posts on abortion. I had a tough situation once and have a 48 year old daughter to prove our decision. I still think a woman has the final say about her body and whats in it.
Anyway, here is his response when I questioned him about the validity of this article:
Quote:
Thanks for the question. For the most part the statements are somewhat true. However, what those statements fail to say is that while churchmen did not always recognize the child in the womb to be a human being from the moment of conception, it always considered the murder of a child in the womb to be abortion. We see this clearly laid out in the Didache (the first century document on early Church practices) which states, "you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten." This ARTICLE outlines the Church's perpetual prohibition on abortion.
It was not until the 19th century that biological science discovered that a human being comes into existence from the moment of conception. Since that time, the Church has taught that the termination of a pregnancy from conception forward is the murder of an innocent child in the womb. Prior to that there were various points in time during the gestation period that a child was believed to be a living human being. For much of history, this was thought to be the moment of "quickening" (when the mother first feels the child move). Even so, abortion was not allowed at any stage.
What has changed is NOT the Church's position on abortion that has always been considered murder of an innocent child in the womb. What has changed is the understanding of the point in time one becomes a human being that could be aborted. We can thank the development of modern biological science for helping us understand when human life begins. The Church has always taught that terminating an innocent human life is murder and now we know definitively when that life actually comes into existence.