The Church, Ensoulment, and Abortion
In light of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s recent erroneous statement that the Church does not teach that abortion is wrong because of early debates about the time of ensoulment, I am reposting this article from Father Tad Pacholczyk:
[T]he moral teaching of the Church is that the human embryo must be treated as if it were already ensouled, even if it might not yet be so. It must be treated as if it were a person from the moment of conception, even if there exists the theoretical possibility that it might not yet be so.
It should also be noted that early ignorance about embryology is what led to the range of opinions about exactly when ensoulment occurs — and Speaker Pelosi’s appeal to Saint Augustine. What she fails to realize is that, even if there is no definition from the Church about the exact moment of ensoulment, the Church has always unambiguously and authoritatively taught that abortion is a grave evil, and also that most Church thinkers are of the mind that we know enough about embryology in the modern day to reasonably conclude that conception is the moment of ensoulment.
See also:
Archbishop Chaput of Denver’s Statement on Pelosi’s Comments
Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or “ensouled.” But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.
Edward Cardinal Egan’s Statement Regarding Pelosi’s Comments
We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb. In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons.
