The Church has always said that abortion is a “no-no.” The confuse arises from a difference of opinion about the severity of the offense. Some theologians accepted the embryology of Aristotle, which had it that the soul did not enter the body until the “quickening’” This theory was held until the 1840s when the nature of conception was first clearly understood. Until this time, physicians had been accustomed to solve female problem by givng them drugs that “loosened the menses,” But after a Belgien scientist actually observed the union of a rabbit sperm with an ovums and the beginning of the borth process, physicians realized they had actually been producing abortions. Consequently state medical associations began pushing for laws that prevented such treatments. The Texas law struck down by Roe V. Wade was enacted at the instigation of the TMA. The Church’s position was simply a recognition of where the science pointed to, which affirmed the Church’s ancient position that all life was sacred, and that the pagan practices of abortion and infanticide were abominations. Even the Justinian Code, enacted by a Christian emperor, had not banned abortion, but the new science made it clear that avoiding abortion was not just simply a very pious act but the proper basis for law. Incidentally, the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception went hand in hand with this new awareness. If God became man at the moment of the Annunciation, than all humans come into being at the moment of their conception.
The pre-Christian Hippocratic oath pledges against both euthanasia and abortion. Even the pagan Greeks understood evil when they saw it.
You know, that’s a great point you’re making. What would make those physicians in any age after Christ think that way, that a soul enters the body somewhere along in the process? God’s soul went where? Nowhere? The BABY that the angel Gabriel announced was soulless, until when? WOW. People just can’t get it. Unbelievable.