Today the Church celebrates the life of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor, as in Doctor of the Church. He was certainly no doctor of biology, though the pro-abortion folks love to celebrate his primitive understanding of embryology as somehow an indication that the Church has not always condemned abortion as it does today.
Pro-aborts claim Augustine questioned when the developing human became animated with life, and thus, when ensoulment occurred. The quotes below suggest otherwise. At no time did he ever countenance contraception or abortion. Rather, he condemned both, as the following excerpts attest:
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.
-De Nube et Concupiscentia 1.17 (15)
On the undeveloped fetus:
Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother’s womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed. Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be present: so that the nature shall neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that length of days has added; but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed.
-Enchiridion 23.85.4
On therapeutic abortion:
And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead.
-Enchiridion 23.86
Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, “I do not see that which you say must be believed.”
– Sermon 126, line 12
If Augustine questions the formation of the early aborted baby with this line, which is a favorite of pro-aborts:
Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified?
But Augustine makes no doubt about the human identity and status of those unfructified seeds in the very next sentence:
“But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting… but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed.”
This is a critical point for pro-life apologists. Augustine demolishes the modern abortion apologia by positing the human essence at the very earliest stages of development, clearly indicating that these human beings will not only be present on the last day, but that their bodily resurrection will be manifest in complete developmental form. It didn’t matter to Augustine whether or not the embryo is just a clump of cells. It is human, fully human if it is to appear at the resurrection of the dead.
Apart from engaging in a bald-faced lie, the pro-aborts also show the illogic of their approach in trying to impute to Augustine a primitive understanding of developmental biology and concomitant lack of human attribution to that entity. If on the one hand the argument goes that spiritual matters are a function of biological knowledge (As they falsely impute to Augustine), then they have destroyed themselves in the modern era. The field of developmental biology has spoken decisively of the human identity and status of the embryo from the moment of conception. By their logic, it follows that the embryo indeed has a soul.
Reaching back to a period of perceived uncertitude as a rationale for abortion is an absurdity when placed alongside the modern certitude of the embryo’s human identity and status.
Priests for Life has compiled a lengthy list of early Church condemnations of abortion, beginning in the First Century. The list makes it clear that the Church has condemned abortion consistently from its very founding.
Augustine was simply one in a long line of Bishops to do so.
Coming Home 
Who are all the “pro-life folks” who think At. Augustine was on their side, besides Pelosi’s odd remark a couple years back?
As a Catholic “pro-abort” myself (who used abortificiant contraception for many years), you’d think I would have heard of them, but I admit, I am not always up on everything people are saying.
L.,
Quite a few pro-abort folk go about spouting this stuff about Augustine, Aquinas, and many of the early Church Fathers. I’ve suffered through notable Ph.D.’s on college campuses who go about indoctrinating young people that they know would never question them.
So, how is life in Japan?
Life in Japan is great, thanks — and I am going on a business trip to San Francisco next week, so I’ll get to see all my old friends there.
Wasn’t St. Augstine among those who thought that a male fetus was ensouled before a female fetus? I suppose I could Google that and find out, but the point is that even if he (or others did), they were clearly operating on the best scientific knowlege available hundreds of years ago, and they wouldn’t necessarily hold the same views if they knew all we know today.
So it seems a bit disingenuous to cite them, as if they did.
Related to this:
In Japan, there are plenty of Buddhist temples here devoted to “Mizuko” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuko_kuy%C5%8D).
I’ve noticed, anecdotally, that many of my Japanese friends who had abortions when they were younger simply believe that these same babies eventually born to them years later, when they were ready to have them. The same souls returned.
And you know, there is no way to ever empirically prove to them that this wasn’t the case.
Here’s another paper on the subject I mentioned above:
http://bama.ua.edu/~emartin/publications/mkarticl.htm
Ironically, most people in Japan believe abortion should remain legal — one would never call this a “pro-life culture.” And yet, I definitely see evidence everywhere that pregnancy loss (even intentional loss, via abortion) is a valid thing to mourn.
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L wrote:
“I’ve noticed, anecdotally, that many of my Japanese friends who had abortions when they were younger simply believe that these same babies eventually born to them years later, when they were ready to have them. The same souls returned.”
Fatalism does have its advantages to deaden the conscience. Which ends in raping Nankin, Unit731, and those “comfort women”.
Of course Akiro Kurosawa dealt with Buddhaism in his classic film, Dreams, specifically, “The Tunnel”. So what’s with the “barking dog” in “The Tunnel”? Please tell me you have seen Kurosawa’s film, Dreams?
If one has a shrine to the war dead(Yakusuni), why no shrine to abortion? Afterall, both gave their soul and body in a blood sacrifice?
Astran, as usual, your questions are baffling me — perhaps their intention? Sorry, I’m not much of a film buff — I don’t want to talk about movies.
I will say generally that while one can find public expressions of remorse for abortion in Japan, there are no public expresssions of remorse for WWII. There is no way for men to mourn what they did in the war. The survivors are all elderly know, but I knew at least one Imperial Army veteran who probably would have been happy for an outlet to atone for the souls he killed in Manchuria.
And what makes you think the consciences of my post-abortive friends are “dead?” That’s an odd assumption. But then again, most of what you’ve said in your comments has gone right over my simple head.
“I’ve noticed, anecdotally, that many of my Japanese friends who had abortions when they were younger simply believe that these same babies eventually born to them years later, when they were ready to have them. The same souls returned.”
I’ve heard of this strange thinking too.
However if a woman has 8 abortions or 15 abortions as many of these women due in such cultures, how can all these children possibly be born to her years later ? In fact, it’s now evident that this has not been happening in Japan. Japan is one of the first cultures to be truly a dead and dying one. Their birthrate is pathetically low – much much below replacement. And while Japanese social scientists realize this they have no solution to the problem. The prevailing culture is that MOST young Japanese women simply don’t want children. A far cry from their culture years ago. They want a life of ease and indulgence.
The fact is that when a baby is conceived, that is THE right time for the baby.
99.999% of abortions are for convenience and nothing more.
Mary Catherine, Japan is not “truly dead” — but it’s low birth rate is troubling.
The prevailing culture is that MOST young Japanese women want children very much, but the economy has been in the dumpers for a long time, and they don’t feel as if they can afford more than one, or maybe two.
I don’t know anyone who has had 8 or 15 abortions. That’s not common in this culture.
The two main forms of contraception here are condoms and abstinence, with the latter being far more prevalent, from what I see. Of course I can’t discuss such a personal subject with everyone I meet, but I do know lots of couples who feel as if they couldn’t pay to educate another child, so they simply refrain from sexual relations. It’s 100% effective.
Also, I also know more infertile couples over here than post-abortive women. For many people, lack of children isn’t due to a lack of wanting, or trying.
L wrote:
“Astran, as usual, your questions are baffling me — perhaps their intention? Sorry, I’m not much of a film buff — I don’t want to talk about movies.”
To bad. It’s as if a Japanese person never took the time to see a classic American movie. As for St, Augustine, have you read City Of God? Or do you take the words of others, and have them do your thinking for you? I find myself reading City of God over and over, and finding myself discovering new ideas that I missed before. The idea that two cities exist side by side, and both built from love, is unique.
Abortion is built on love, the love to please oneself, or another, and the sexual act is completed by abortion. Or a birth.
Nope, never read City of God — nor do I believe I have ever taken the words of others and let them do my thinking for me, since I don’t go around citing St. Augustine.
I don’t understand why failing to see a classic American movie is anthing to be held against a Japanese person. (And I’ve seen all of Kurosawa’s films — I just don’t want to talk about them in an unrelated thread.)
“Abortion is built on love, the love to please oneself, or another, and the sexual act is completed by abortion. Or a birth.” ——> or a miscarriage. Lots of the “Mizuko” statues are for miscarriages.
Oh, Mary Catherine, one more thing — you asked, “However if a woman has 8 abortions or 15 abortions as many of these women due in such cultures, how can all these children possibly be born to her years later?”
You say, “all these children,” when actually, some woman believe they are aborting the same one over and over — a soul that is trying to surface, and keeps returning again and again.
While the unique physical combination of egg and sperm happens but once, they believe the child’s soul is the same.
And as I said, how can one ever empirically prove them wrong? It rests entirely on faith, and on when the zygote is ensouled.
For that matter, how do I know that my eldest son isn’t the same soul that I miscarried a few years before he was born? In fact, I don’t.
L wrote:
I don’t understand why failing to see a classic American movie is anthing to be held against a Japanese person. (And I’ve seen all of Kurosawa’s films — I just don’t want to talk about them in an unrelated thread.)
“Abortion is built on love, the love to please oneself, or another, and the sexual act is completed by abortion. Or a birth.” ——> or a miscarriage. Lots of the “Mizuko” statues are for miscarriages.
All I said was, “to bad”. I don’t hold it against a Japanese person if they haven’t seen a classic American movie. I asked, and you declined to answer my question if you saw Dreams. You don’t discuss movies. Fine.
But, “The Tunnel”, does relate to abortion and also includes mourning the sacrifice of the dead. One can replace the soldiers with women that have been led to a abortion by a leader/commander, or kami for abortion. As for abortion and miscarriage, they differ in the fact that the will is present in one, and nature is present in the other, with no will involved. Still no shrine to abortion as there’s for the faithful war dead.
Since you wrote that Japanese women rationalize away the use of their will to kill the by-product of their love, the barking dog, with grenades on his back in Kurosawa’s, The Tunnel, represents loyalty to their master, the commander. But, the problem is that the troops don’t know they’re dead. The “not knowing they are dead” inhibits them from being born again/reincarnated. The commander trys to tell them they are dead, and the loyal dog growls at the commander.
Soo, if a women aborts a human being, she must convince the soul of the aborted baby to accept the death of the body, and the love the baby had for the mother is what keeps the baby from being born again. It is a asking/demanding to kill the memory of love.
The same problem the commander had in The Tunnel. In essence, it is a nightmare Dream.
The tunnel scene is indeed creepy, particularly the dog. Okay, I don’t want to get drawn into yet another conversation about movies.
There is no shrine to abortion that I know of, but there are many temples dedicated to “Mizuko kuyo,” as I mentioned (and linked) above.
“As for abortion and miscarriage, they differ in the fact that the will is present in one, and nature is present in the other, with no will involved.” —> Ah, but sometimes, when a baby is unwanted, a miscarriage is prayed for, welcomed, and even celebrated. Even if a conscious act didn’t cause the baby to die, not every miscarriage is mourned — nor should they be.
L wrote:
You say, “all these children,” when actually, some woman believe they are aborting the same one over and over — a soul that is trying to surface, and keeps returning again and again.
While the unique physical combination of egg and sperm happens but once, they believe the child’s soul is the same
—————————————————–
And soo we have St Augustine’s belief in your above quoted words, before he became a Catholic. That’s exactly what St Augustine believed. If you had read City Of God, much of his discourse is in refuting the pagan gods that enforced reincarnation, or migrating of souls.
I must confess to giving you too much knowledge in matters of St Augustine, L. Sorry about that. But, that’s what this thread is about, isn’t it? St. Augustine and his statments on abortion. He knew about abortion and how it was made a virtue of the kami’s.
He knew that denying the new creation of a soul and the body that accompanied the soul, is to lessen the creation into not really being created. Individualism is reduced consistently in Japan, and the kami’s were used to reduce that individualism until one became a fatalist/reincarnationist murdering babies with your bayonet in Nanking, China.
Or, it surfaces in a women starving her children to death while rooting for a soccer team. Afterall, it’s their pre-destination to die in such a manner.
BTW, since you claim to be a Catholic by birth, then Obama is a Muslim by birth acccording to your logic.
Ah, Astran — I am not a Catholic by birth. I am a Catholic by baptism. 🙂
“The tunnel scene is indeed creepy, particularly the dog”
You must kill the love that created the loyalty. Destroy the memory of love, so the soul may inhabit another useless body. That’s my point, and St Augustine knew the same philosophy/belief in his time.
The dog is creepy to you because he is love and loyalty that won’t be annihilated soo easily. I love the dog, and soo do many Japanese. The commander wants them to forget and move along to another useless body. Just as those that insult the aborted and miscarried soul attached to a useless body by celebrating, or trying to forget/not mourn, the use of a soul for their wants and wishes.
Ah, Astran — I am not a Catholic by birth. I am a Catholic by baptism.
You had no say in being baptised, did you? You were baptised without your permission. You were a Catholic before you knew you were a Catholic. Obama was a Muslim before he knew he was a Muslim too. His father’s religion made him a Muslim, just as your parents made you a Catholic before you knew you were a Catholic.
Nope. The dog is creepy because he suddenly emerges from a dark tunnel, snarling and snapping. You love the dog? Or you just love what the dog symbolizes?
Is it possible to “insult” a miscarried soul, by failing to mourn it? I don’t believe it is.
It’s true my parents made me a Catholic before I had any say in the matter, and subsequently raised me as one (and I considered myself devout, believing everything, until I was 15 and changed my views on abortion).
Do you want me to say, Obama is a Muslim the way I am a Catholic, since I am a Catholic who is not in full communion with the Church, exactly the way Obama is a “genetic Muslim” who wasn’t raised as such and calls himself a Christian?
Sure, I can say that, since you seem to like this comparison — but this view seems to totally ignore the role of sacrament of baptism.
Or do you believe that baptism just “comes undone,” as soon as someone dissents on anything, and they are no longer Catholic, the way Obama is “no longer” Muslim?
L.
Is it possible to “insult” a miscarried soul, by failing to mourn it? I don’t believe it is.
Of course you don’t. But, that’s not my point. It’s the annihilation of love,loyalty and memory that allows the soul to migrate into another useless body.
Since you don’t do movies, how about Dostoevsky? Brother’s Karamazov?
Chapter 3: Peasant Women Who Have Faith?
Again the subject is death, loyalty, and memory. Ever read the book?
As for baptism, who cares, you don’t really either. It’s a invisible tattoo, Supernatural things don’t exist in nature. Actually, you were never baptised by anything physical, but water, which has no rational/natural meaning to physical water.. Like most little Catholic girls, they fade away by way of a prayer unanswered or a vice condemned. Or as Socrates said, Men start revolutions for personal reasons. Or maybe it was Aristotle.
Men start revolutions for personal reasons.
And women have abortions for personal reasons.
And women have abortions for personal reasons. – usually ones of convenience. 😦
In 1989, 11.6 per cent of Japan’s population was over 65. Less than 20 years later, seniors are 21.1 per cent of the Japanese people.
the lack of children and the inverted pyramid of population has in fact likely exacerbated and may have even precipitated the economic crisis many western nations now face
aborted babies do not purchase, do not work, do make more babies
and as for aborting the same baby over and over – what absolute rubbish.
I have read many many reports of women not only in Japan but in many European countries who do not want ANY children, EVER. I consider this to be very unnatural for a true woman.
Wow, Mary Catherine — you and I actually agree on something. Japan needs more babies.
But I do think it’s a stretch to blame the global economic crisis on the falling birth rate in just a few countries.
I have read many many reports of women not only in Japan but in many European countries who do not want ANY children, EVER, and some of them are…..nuns. I would call them “true women,” but….that’s just me.
And I would never be able to look a devout post-abortive Buddhist in the eye, and tell her that her faith-based belief was “absolute rubbish.”
your concept of the religious vocation is distorted.
Nuns do wish for children but they have been called by God to forgo this wonderful vocation to be the Bride of Christ.
Their children are the many children they tend to both spiritually and physically. Any woman not wanting children would likely be turned away from the wonderful faithful and growing religious orders today just as she would be if she had a disordered view of men and marriage. One does not escape the world by being a nun but very much lives in a deeper sense, in the world. And I simply do not believe it is “normal” for a woman to not want children just as you believe it is fine for women to destroy their babies.
The global economic crisis is complex but there is no doubt that one of the contributors is the lack of a younger demographic in many of these countries. The inverted pyramid is going to create a difficult situation in many countries with an unsupported elderly population. The socialist state doesn’t work very well with too few workers to pay for everyone.
“The socialist state doesn’t work very well with too few workers to pay for everyone.” —> Japan? Socialist?
Not all nuns wish for children. Some of them surely do, and for them it is indeed a sacrifice — others don’t, because they feel they are called to serve in other ways.
There was a teacher at our school in San Francisco (a former nun who laicized) who said teaching was her vocation, and that she was just not called to be a mother.
If a woman chooses to remain childless to pursue a life of carefree partying — yeah, I’d have to agree, it’s her right to do this, but it does strike me as selfish.
But if a woman chooses to remain childless to pursue a career as an educator, or a researcher…..or a nun…..well, I do think this is compatible with being a “true woman.”
And I would never be able to look a devout post-abortive Buddhist in the eye, and tell her that her faith-based belief was “absolute rubbish.”
I can understand that YOU would feel uncomfortable doing this but I would not. Her idea about the same baby being aborted again and again is NOT a reasonable thing. We are not just a soul – we have a body and a soul that are integrated and both affect the other. To kill another human being again and again – how does this make it right? And is horrific to me. 😦
“There was a teacher at our school in San Francisco (a former nun who laicized) who said teaching was her vocation, and that she was just not called to be a mother.”
This does not mean that she does not want to have children.
The type of woman who does not want children today is generally one who has a revulsion of children or who finds that she simply doesn’t want to make sacrifices necessary for children. She often suffers from over concern about her body. These women have lost their femininity or have stifled it.
The nuns of today are a far cry from those entering the convents years ago – even 20 years ago. These women are at peace with their femininity and love children. They are not called to be mothers in the way that I am, but are called to be the Bride of Christ.
I would strongly suggest you meet with the new Dominican nuns that have been on Oprah Winfrey’s show. One of my very best friends has a daughter in this order. They are true women.
Mary Catherine, you might be surprised to hear that years ago, when I was in high school, I looked into joining an order myself.
So you think nuns are “true women” — I agree.
But a lay woman who decides not to have children and devote her life to her career — even if it is a career of service — is somehow not “true,” and has “lost” her femininity or “stifled it?”
—> “To kill another human being again and again – how does this make it right?”
It makes it right because she does not believe she is really “killing” it, if she believes its soul is born elsewhere. You find this horrific, but I find it quite beautiful — this thinking brought great comfort to all the Japanese women (now quite elderly) who had abortions in the hard years during the war, and immediately after, when children were literally starving to death around them.
—> “To kill another human being again and again – how does this make it right?”
“It makes it right because she does not believe she is really “killing” it, if she believes its soul is born elsewhere. You find this horrific, but I find it quite beautiful — this thinking brought great comfort to all the Japanese women (now quite elderly) who had abortions in the hard years during the war, and immediately after, when children were literally starving to death around them.”
How does this comfort make it right? It is comfortable for many to ignore genocide but does that make it a good thing. What good is comfort at the expense of truth? So these women are “comfortable” because they believe something that is not the truth – the truth is that they killed their babies – by their own hands so that they wouldn’t starve to death
again we see abortion offered as a solution to a problem.
These children may have starved to death or they may not have. They may have been murdered during the war or not. (what would it have mattered since they would have been reincarnated – yes?!)
But though the loss of a child is a terrible thing to bear better that than to live with the knowledge that they as a mother have killed their own child. This is such an unnatural thing for a woman and goes against every ounce of her God-given nature as a woman.
Sometimes, L, the truth is a hard thing.
Any woman who has had an abortion and comes to the realization that she killed her child – this truth is very very painful. But better to suffer this pain than the comfort of ignorance.
What I see here is an entire nation of women (and men perhaps) in denial about the truth of abortion and the truth about what they have done.
At what point will they face the truth?
I would say that the truth is now coming home to roost in their country (as it is in many others). The truth is evident in the missing children.
Every day when I drive by the three closed schools in my town I think of these empty classrooms as the missing children contracepted and aborted out of existence. That is the truth of our culture of death.
I don’t know if you can blame the “culture of death” stuff for everything…..I am personally very fertile, so I studied NFP so that I could abstain during my most fertile times. I didn’t entirely trust artificial contraception because failure rates, while small, were not 100% foolproof.
Over the years, I “abstained” dozens and dozens of my own children out of existence. I chose not to bring them into the world.
If they were all here, I would certainly love all of them, but as a direct result of my actions, none of them were ever born.
(*Side note — my doctor strongly recommended that I stop after two c-sections because my uterine walls were very thin, so it highly unlikely I would have been able to safely deliver all of the babies I was capable of conceiving.)
Anyway… the truth is indeed a “hard thing.” All of the elderly post-abortive Buddhist women I know fully acknowlege they “killed” their babies. They do the equivalent of penance for their abortions (see “Mizuko” links above, if you haven’t).
They just believe that their babies’ souls were reborn elsewhere, perhaps even to other families.
And yes, I believe I am incapable of dismissing deeply-held religious beliefs as “absolute rubbish” to the faces of those who hold them– I fail to see how that would be helping anyone.
Even if you think such thinking is tragically misguided, use of words like that almost guarantees that someone is going to close her heart and her mind to you, instead of perhaps listening and learning from what you have to say.
Any woman who has had an abortion and comes to the realization that she killed her child – this truth is very very painful. But better to suffer this pain than the comfort of ignorance.
I also wish to add that facing the truth can bring about healing.
Japan is a nation in need of healing. They have had a culture of abortion for many many decades now.
Japan is indeed a nation in need of healing, in many ways.
As I said, though, most unborn Japanese children result (or don’t result) from that same actions behind the majority of my own unborn children: abstinence.
The abortion rate here is actually dropping, because people aren’t aborting babies never conceived in the first place.
“Even if you think such thinking is tragically misguided, use of words like that almost guarantees that someone is going to close her heart and her mind to you, instead of perhaps listening and learning from what you have to say.”
I would never tell a woman her belief as you stated is rubbish but I would tell her the truth. (I was using a colloquialism here.) The truth is that she killed a child who had a purpose here on earth at that time, even though she couldn’t see it herself. I would tell her that abortion stops a beating heart and that that person is unique, unrepeatable and precious.
I would tell her the truth. Abortion kills another human being and a mother does not have that right over any child she bears.
“Over the years, I “abstained” dozens and dozens of my own children out of existence. I chose not to bring them into the world.”
that is your loss – NFP can also be used contraceptively too.
Have a nice evening. I”m off to put together a new diningroom set where all my children can enjoy their precious life together and give thanks they have a mother who loves each and every one of them regardless of the circumstance of their birth. 🙂
It’s not evening — it’s morning, where I am.
And I love my kids, too, and enjoy life with them — even though I certainly used NFP “contaceptively,” to prevent pregnancies outright. Spare the uterus, you know?
I guess that makes me not a “true woman,” because I wasn’t open to life after having only three, but…somehow, I can live with that.
“Abortion kills another human being and a mother does not have that right over any child she bears.” —>
But does a mother have a right to “abstain” her children out of existence in the first place? This is a separate question.
L, not interested anymore. Have a nice day/evening, whatev! I believe I’ve made my points. 😉
Dr Nadal, thank you for an informative post on St. Augustine.
As usual, proaborts often take a kernel of truth and make it into a cob of deceit.
I especially like this paragraph:
Augustine demolishes the modern abortion apologia by positing the human essence at the very earliest stages of development, clearly indicating that these human beings will not only be present on the last day, but that their bodily resurrection will be manifest in complete developmental form. It didn’t matter to Augustine whether or not the embryo is just a clump of cells. It is human, fully human if it is to appear at the resurrection of the dead.
I shall be bookmarking this post. 🙂
Mary Catherine, I am heartily sorry you’re “not interested anymore.” I always relish the opportunity to exchange viewpoints with others, particularly those who strongly hold different opinions. This is why I leave my “comfort zone” and read far more than just liberal feminist blogs. Who knows, I might learn something….or even more amazingly, I might help someone else learn something.
In the meantime, as St. Augustine would say, da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo. 😉
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