In a short letter on June 22nd
last Dr James Sheehan wrote that “the Hippocratic Oath was written in
the pre-Christian era, more than 400 years before Christ’s time on
earth.
Hippocrates stated, ‘I will show the utmost respect for every
human life from fertilisation to natural death and reject abortion that
deliberately takes a unique human life’.”
He
continued: “As medical practitioners, on qualifying we all subscribed to
the beliefs contained in the oath. The Catholic Church for over 2,000
years has upheld the Hippocratic Principles. I commend it for doing so. –
Yours, etc,”
He signed himself as “Director
Blackrock and Galway Clinics”.
Dr Sheehan is also a patron of the
conservative Catholic think tank the Iona Institute.
Whatever may have been the case with
Hippocrates, Dr Sheehan is wrong when he asserts that “the Catholic
Church for over 2,000 years has upheld the Hippocratic Principles”.
In fact he is out by more than 1,856 years.
The
Catholic Church’s current position on abortion is 144 years old.
In the
1869 document Apostolicae Sedis, Pope Pius IX declared the penalty of
excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.
Up to then
Catholic teaching was that no homicide was involved if abortion took
place before the foetus was infused with a soul, known as “ensoulment”.
Separate consciousness
This was believed to occur at “quickening”, when the mother detected the child move for the first time in her womb. It indicated a separate consciousness.
In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV
determined it took place at 166 days of pregnancy, almost 24 weeks. That
is the current legal limit for abortion in the UK. It was Catholic
Church teaching until 1869.
Among those who held a different view on abortion to that of the Catholic Church now are some of its most eminent thinkers.
These
include at least three of the 33 Catholic Church “super saints” –
Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas – all of them “Doctors of the Church”.
Were one to follow the logic of some in the church today, they should be
excommunicated.
It has been argued by apologists
that those saints did not have the benefit of being aware of such
scientific discoveries as that of the ovum in 1827 and the human
fertilisation process in the 1830s.
Then, as it is put, such saints
would have known that human life began at conception. That is to miss
the point.
Those saints never doubted that what
they were dealing with from the moment of conception was human life.
What preoccupied them was when that life became a person.
They did not
accept that a collection of biochemical elements with potential was a
person.
They sought evidence of emerging consciousness. In those
pre-scientific days they settled on quickening as the great indicator of
that – when the child began to kick in the womb.
Were
they around today they too might query whether those who assert so
really believe that a person exists from the moment of conception.
Surely, were that the case, those 55 per cent of “people” who are
miscarried soon after conception would be afforded baptisms and funeral
rites.
They are not.
Apologists
also argue that their belief is based on the “potential/process” of
such fertilised ovums.
Looking forward, where that “process” argument is
concerned, if such a collection of biochemical elements is to be
afforded the status of personhood, should this not also apply to limbs
and organs removed through surgery, etc?
Why no funeral rites for those
either?
Looking backwards where that
“potential/proceess” argument is concerned, surely it should also mean
that every sperm and every ovum ought to be preserved due to its
potential personhood given the right circumstances?
It doesn’t happen.
What about all those potential “people” denied existence?
In
truth the Catholic Church’s current position on abortion appears to owe
more to theology than to science.
In 1854 the same Pope Pius IX
declared the Immaculate Conception a dogma of the church.
It teaches
that Mary, mother of Jesus, was conceived without original sin, thus
solving an age-old conundrum – how could the Son of God be born of a
woman with original sin on her soul?
It was decided she was born without
original sin on her soul.
And when in 1854 Pius
IX proclaimed the Immaculate Conception a dogma of the church, he stated
that Mary had been free from sin “in the first instant of her
conception”.
Fifteen years later, in 1869, he was
being consistent with that teaching when he revived the penalty of
excommunication for abortion at any stage of pregnancy.