Re: Jocasta and Mary, was abortion poll bullshit
On Mar 10, 2007, at 1:18 PM, joanna wrote:
Doug Henwood wrote:
Yup. Even the Catholic church didn’t object until the 1890s.
What made them change their mind?
I don’t remember Luker’s analysis, and I’m too lazy to look it up, =
but I did the easy thing: google!
http://www.cbctrust.com/history_law_religion.php#3
Evolving Position of the Christian Church
St. Augustine (AD 354-430) said, =93There cannot yet be said to be a =
live soul in a body that lacks sensation=94, and held that abortion =
required penance only for the sexual aspect of the sin.6 He and other =
early Christian theologians believed, as had Aristotle centuries =
before, that “animation”, or the coming alive of the fetus, occurred =
forty days after conception for a boy and eighty days after =
conception for a girl. The conclusion that early abortion is not =
homicide is contained in the first authoritative collection of canon =
law accepted by the church in 1140.6 As this collection was used as =
an instruction manual for priests until the new Code of Canon Law of =
1917, its view of abortion has had great influence.6
At the beginning of the 13th century, Pope Innocent III wrote that =
=93quickening=94 =97the time when a woman first feels the fetus move within= =
her=97 was the moment at which abortion became homicide; prior to =
quickening, abortion was a less serious sin. Pope Gregory XIV agreed, =
designating quickening as occurring after a period of 116 days (about =
17 weeks). His declaration in 1591 that early abortion was not =
grounds for excommunication continued to be the abortion policy of =
the Catholic Church until 1869.
The tolerant approach to abortion which had prevailed in the Roman =
Catholic Church for centuries ended at the end of the nineteenth =
century.7 In 1869, Pope Pius IX officially eliminated the Catholic =
distinction between an animated and a nonanimated fetus and required =
excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.
This change has been seen by some as a means of countering the rising =
birth control movement, especially in France,8 with its declining =
Catholic population. In Italy, during the years 1848 to 1870, the =
papal states shrank from almost one-third of the country to what is =
now Vatican City. It has been argued that the Pope’s restriction on =
abortion was motivated by a need to strengthen the Church=92s spiritual =
control over its followers in the face of this declining political =
power.8