I agree that the science of conception is well understood. The question of personhood is theological/philosophical rather than scientific although I raised some real scientific problems in my first post on this thread. Many Christian theologians and/or philosophers have similar difficulties:
"The law does not provide that the act of abortion pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation..."--St Augustine
"The intellective soul i.e., true person is created by God at the completion of man's coming into being." -- St Thomas Aquinas
"Many modern philosophers and theologians return to St. Thomas' view."-- Fr Joseph F. Donceel, S.J.
"To admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception, when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby." --Jacques Maritain
"Many people believe that the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to abortion stems from its conviction that a new human person exists from the first moment of conception...It is clear that this is not now, or has ever been, official church teaching on the matter."--James T. McCartney
"In the rabbinic tradition...abortion remains a non-capital crime at worst."--Rabbi David Feldman
The Scriptures are silent in defining when one becomes a person.
Rather convenient selection of quotes of various Catholics required to misrepresent their position to build up to a anti-Catholic conclusion as supported by non-Catholic opinion, including a famously flaming anti-Catholic James T. McCartney.
That an anti-Catholic poster in an attempt at confusing the philosophical argument of Church Doctors more than it need be is understood for what this is. That it could even be said to be a good attempt at flaming Catholics is not clear at all, but it is obviously and directly an attempt to discredit the Catholic position in a thread defending what should be every Christian's rather required stand against abortion. Made even a more general insult to everyone in CF in that it violates the expressed request of the OP for thread topic, offering scientific support for an anti-abortion position or Scriptural or Church support for same.
While it is true and at various times, but especially in the middle ages, we can find some Catholics offering opinion about when the soul could positively be said present in the body, even by a few weeks after conception, what is never true even of those specific people so quoted, that there was at the same time (or at ANY time), a belief that it was ever OK to perform or seek or obtain an abortion. The record is very clear on that and omitting that in viewing these quotes is being both false in witness to them and salacious toward the Church’s consistence stance.
The opinion expressed by Saint Augustine is just an appeal to the more ancient one of Aristotle. It is an expression of when a soul could positively be said to be present in a stage of human development. As such, this quote is addressing only an opinion as to whether an abortion is always equivalent with murder. So rather obviously not a reflection on whether abortion might be OK at ANYTIME, it is clearly ONLY an opinion at what point could one positively declare it equivalent to murder (also a grave sin). Because the Church has from the beginning held ANY abortion a grave sin, it would be a serious insult/error for anyone to declare it OK. A charge even a Doctor of the Church could not escape if he in fact offered that opinion. This quote then is obviously not a Saint saying abortion is OK sometimes.
To attempt to understand the view of Saint Thomas without giving him the full power of all his view on the matter is dishonest at best. He saw multiple "powers" of the same human soul beyond just the power of intellect. That specific power is obviously associated with the senses, but it is not the only power the Saint maintains the human soul has. To suggest then the lack of senses created a problem for him having the human soul's presence required before "senses" could reasonably be assured is declaring something he did not say at all. By contrast his fuller view of all the powers of the soul refutes the gross distortion of his position intentionally meant to be presented by offering the quote the poster gave us.
Saint Thomas requires every living thing to have a spirit driving from conception what that thing is to be (become). In that same process of development, the human spirit, our soul, is distinct from other living things in that our souls he says have a “power of intellect” their spirits lack. A power which obviously would come to first use only with later stages of our development. So, his view of that quality of our souls is not a declaration at all that the soul's absent prior to that point. Obviously, just as he insists with all animals, Saint Thomas requires our soul to be present at conception to be driving that person from the moment of conception to become what we are, human. Which again is fully consistent with the Church’s ever present opinion against abortion.
Saint Thomas, like Augustine before him, has more specific declarations about 40/80 days are again based on his appeal to Aristotle. BTW also funny as the ancient Greek philosopher made it twice as long for girls and that opinion still held over millennium later, which today seems counter intuitive but still understandable as a man’s view. In this specific appeal to an older view this Doctor of the Church is doing nothing more than correctly offering his opinion that at such a point in our development a "soul" could without any doubting be declared present because the intellectual powers of that soul (for sensation) would obviously have to be admitted by everyone, including the more ancient Greeks. So regardless of the quotes selected these views are all fully consistent with that ever present consistent view of the Church.
The 20th Catholic, French (why do I hate the French again? lol) philosopher Jacques Maritain's view of the soul is likewise misrepresented in the quote as he too is speaking of and no doubt in at least a partial and in error appeal to Saint Thomas's concept power of the intellect from our soul. He even labels it intellectual soul (oppose to spirits of other animals). A Catholic lay person is entitled to expressing opinion, but his anti-abortion argument makes some rather critical errors that Saint Thomas did not make. One of those errors is in his own appeal to Saint Thomas's understanding of a human soul's power of the intellect. None the less and forgiving any flawed reasoning expressed, the good Catholic Jacques was indeed famous for among other things, his anti-abortion stance which is also fully consistent with the never changing Church position.
So even though Jacques argument and his staunch stand for protecting the human embryo is flawed in some specifics as reasons for holding to it so dearly, the flaws do not change where he stood on the matter. We cannot pretend from a single quote that 1) he did not defend that embryo as absolutely being a human 2) his opinion on the Church's historical position is entirely accurate even if understood that way or even that "not a baby" means as much as an anti-Catholic flamer or many pro-choice folks would want it to mean to the cheese lover Jacques.
As the remainder of the post are appeals to either flaming anti-Catholic or non-Catholics. I accept those folks and many others including the poster would want to hold such dim view of the Church's consistent stand on abortion.
