Hello hieuho,
Thank you for your question.
I located a very good article at Paul Tobin's pages at GeoCities:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/abortion.html
The Catholic Church and Abortion
"...The Church's anti-abortion crusade is spear-headed by its "Right
to Life" [a] movement. While there is nothing in the Bible that
relates directly to abortion, these people claim that the Biblical
injunction "Thou Shalt Not Kill" applies equally to abortion..."
The author continues with early mentions of the church policies
towards abortion:
"...This attitude is not new. We find that in early Christian writings
some voices were already raised against abortion.
Thus the early second century epistle of Barnabas commanded:
Barnabas 19:5
You shall not kill the fetus either by abortion or the newborn.
Tertullian (c160-c225) wrote in 198 that "we are not permitted ... to
destroy the fetus in the womb." [1]
However, these anti-abortion views were by no means universal. Based
partly on the teachings of Aristotle and partly on the Bible, the
traditional Christian view was that the fetus was not immediately
infused with a soul upon conception: the male fetus acquired a soul
forty days after conception, while the female fetus only acquired it
eighty days after conception. Thus, St. Augustine (354-450) argued
that there could be no talk of murder when the fetus has yet to
acquire a soul. [2] Based on Augustine's argument, the traditional
position was generally that which stipulates abortion of the fetus
within eighty days after conception as "permissible", or exempted from
punishment...
...In 1588, Pope Sixtus V (1521-1590), suspended this traditional
ruling, and in his bull Effraenatam threatened anyone who practiced
abortion, even within the eighty day period, with excommunication and
the death penalty. His successor, Pope Gregory XIV (1535-1591),
revoked Sixtus ruling in 1591 and reverted to the traditional ruling
which allows abortion within eighty days of conception...."
This might well be the first official banning and punishment by the
church as regards abortion. The article continues to follow the
history of the church and abortion and seems both excellent and
factual. Highly recommended reading for background on your question.
HerSelf has a history of abortion:
http://www.sexilicious.com/content/self/archive/abortion.html
The History of Abortion
An exploration
Tanith of She-Net
"The abortion debate is one of the most fierce in America today, yet
the history of abortion is surprisingly rarely discussed. Although
there is often an assumption that a woman's right to an abortion is a
modern idea, abortion was not criminalized until the 19th century,
when the medical profession took control of reproduction, something
which had previously been largely the domain of the women...
...It is often thought that the Christian Church has always been
passionately opposed to abortion, but this isn't in fact the case. Up
until the Inquisition, the Catholic Church generally regarded
contraception and abortion as wrong, but not as unforgivable, grievous
sins. Even as late as 1679, Pope Innocent XI said in a Papal Bull that
"It is lawful to procure abortion before ensoulment of the fetus lest
a girl, detected as pregnant, be killed or defamed. It seems probably
that the fetus (as long as it is in the uterus) lacks a rational soul
and begins first to have one when it is born; and consequently it must
be said that no abortion is homocide."...
Another page notes:
http://www.library.by/shpargalka/belarus/english/001/eng-008.htm
"...Abortion history. Abortion has been widely known, practiced, and
debated since ancient times. The ancient Hebrews had laws against
abortion, but they permitted it in cases where the mother's life was
at risk.
The early Christian church generally opposed abortion. For hundreds of
years, however, the church debated whether abortion might be
justifiable before animation. Church scholars defined animation as the
point at which the fetus received a soul. According to church
teachings, animation occurred between 40 and 80 days after conception
(fertilization). From about the 1300's to the 1800's, abortion before
animation became generally accepted in Europe if the pregnancy
endangered the life of the mother. If an abortion before animation
took place for a less serious reason, many church scholars considered
it to be wrong, but not homicide.
In 1869, Pope Pius IX condemned abortion from the moment of
conception, but some Catholic church scholars continued to teach that
abortions performed to save the mother were morally acceptable. In
1895, the Roman Catholic Church declared that abortion is never
justifiable. Today, the Catholic church condemns all forms of direct
abortion--that is, the intentional ending of pregnancy. Current
Catholic teaching permits indirect abortion, in which the fetus is
lost as a side effect of medical treatment designed to save the
mother's life. ..."
The Society of St Pius has this to say:
http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Catholic_Morality/Abortion-What_does_the_Holy_Roman_Catholic_Church_have_to_say.htm
Catholic Morality
Abortion:
What does the Holy Roman Catholic Church have to say?
"..."Every human being, even a child in the mother's womb has a right
to life directly from God and not from the parents or from any society
or authority. Hence there is no man, no human authority, no science,
no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral 'indication' that can
offer or produce a valid juridical title to a direct deliberate
disposal of an innocent human life; that is to say, a disposal that
aims at its destruction whether as an end or as a means to another
end, which is, perhaps, in no way unlawful in itself." Pius XII,
Allocution to Large Families, November 26, 1951...
...But isn't this doctrine new? No. To prove the contrary, here are
a few quotations from authors of the early Church.
a) FIRST TEXT: THE DIDACHE APOSTOLORUM (90 A.D.):
"You shall not kill by abortion the fruit of the womb and you
shall not murder the infant already born." (4)
b) SECOND TEXT: TERTULLIAN (150 - 240 AD):
"To prevent birth is anticipated murder; it makes little
difference whether one destroys a life already born or does away with
it in its nascent stage. The one who will be a man is already one."
(5)
c) THIRD TEXT: ST. AUGUSTINE (354 - 430 AD):
"Their licentious cruelty, or their cruel licentiousness,
sometimes goes to such lengths as to procure sterilizing poisons and
if these are unavailing, in some way to stifle within the womb and
eject the fetus that has been conceived. They want their offspring to
die before it comes to life or, if it is already living in the womb,
to perish before it is born. Surely, if they are both of such a mind,
they do not deserve the name of husband and wife; and if they have
been of such a mind from the beginning, it was not for wedlock but for
fornication that they became united. If they are not both of such a
mind, then I will venture to say that either the woman is the mere
mistress of the husband, or the man is the paramour of the wife." (6)
d) FOURTH TEXT: POPE STEPHEN V (885 - 891 AD):
"That person is a murderer who causes to perish by abortion what
has been conceived."(7)...
There is a great deal of information on this page. But as you can see,
they make reference to early adoption of anti-abortion policies of the
church as early as 90 A.D. This appears to be the earliest text
regarding the subject.
You will also find a list of biblical references to abortion here:
http://www.cpforlife.org/teaching_against_abortion.htm
Christian Teachings Against abortion
Scriptural passages dealing with the Unborn PERSON (and related)
Another page makes this mention:
http://www.ukpoliticsmisc.org.uk/usenet_evidence/abortion_carl_sagan.htm
"...Neither St Augustine nor St Thomas Aquinas considered early term
abortion to be homicide (the latter on the grounds that the embryo
doesn't look human). This view was embraced by the Church in the
Council of Vienne in 1312 and has never been repudiated. The Catholic
Church's first and long-standing collection of canon law (according to
the leading historian of the Church's teaching on abortion, John
Connery SJ) held that abortion was homicide only after the fetus was
already 'formed' - roughly, the end of the first trimester.
But when sperm cells were examined in the seventeenth century by the
first microscopes, they were thought to show a fully formed human
being. An old idea of the homunculus was resuscitated - in which
within each sperm cell was a fully formed tiny human, within whose
testes were innumerable other homunculi, etc., ad infinitum. In part
through this misinterpretation of scientific data, in 1869 abortion
at any time for any reason became grounds for excommunication. It is
surprising to most Catholics and others to discover that the date was
not much earlier..."
So, you have a variety of dates to choose from depending on your
desires to use earliest bible mentions, decrees from the church or
what appears to be the commonly accepted ruling in 1869 for
excommunication brought about by a more scientific approach.
Search Strategy:
"catholic church" +forbid +abortion +when OR "history of"
"catholic church" +forbid +abortion +earliest
I trust my research has provided you with your answer and interesting
background information into the history of abortion and the church. If
a link above should fail to work or anything require further
explanation or research, please do post a Request for Clarification
prior to rating the answer and closing the question and I will be
pleased to assist further.
Regards,
-=clouseau=- |
