The Beliefs and Actions, Past and Present, on Church and...

The Beliefs and Actions, Past and Present, on Church and Abortion For as long as there has been recorded history, there have been recordings of the procedure now known as abortion. The Bible appears to be silent on the topic, which is of no support to Christian groups, especially Catholics, who believe that abortion is a mortal sin. In his book, â€Å"The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives,† John T. Noonan (1970) states that â€Å"The Old Testament has nothing to say on abortion† (6). John Connery (1977) agrees with Noonan in his book â€Å"Abortion: The development of the Roman Catholic Perspective† where he writes, â€Å"If anyone expects to find an explicit condemnation of abortion in the New Testament, he will be disappointed.†¦show more content†¦For much of their history, Catholics viewed abortions performed prior to the point that the fetus first moves as permissible and tolerable (Flanders 29). It was not until 1960 that Pope John Paul VI forbade all abortions, therapeutic or otherwis e (30). Only surgery to save the mother’s life is morally sanctioned by the Catholic Church (30). By doing this, the Catholic Church believes it is defending the lives of millions of powerless fetuses (31). Due to the fact that they changed their minds, it causes the main debated in the battle over whether abortion is morally acceptable. At times in church history, the point at which life was thought to begin varied. Some thought human personhood began at conception, while others believed in the Aristotelian concept that life began 40 to 80 days after conception when the soul enters the body (Childress and Macquarrie 2). Today, science shows that although the human ovum, or egg, is alive when it enters a woman’s fallopian tubes, it is not considered a human being until it meets with a sperm causing conception and the beginning of life as a diploid. Although science an tell us that an egg and a sperm come together to become and embryo and eventually a fetus, it ca n not tell us whether the fetus has a soul, and has a full set of human rights, or if an abortion itself causes pain to the fetus (ReligiousTolerance.org 2). This is one of the mostShow MoreRelatedAbortion: A Heated Debate and Hot Topic in the United States Essay1256 Words   |  6 Pagesstick with one side or the other due to their beliefs and sometimes can be neutral or on the other party’s side for certain topics. Abortion is a very controversial topic as it always has been all around the country but more specifically in the United States. There are two sides to the debate: those who believe abortion should be legal and their organization is known as pro-choice. 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