If you’ve been following Nancy Pelosi’s comments lately and the subsequent remarks by bishops and those in the blogosphere, you may have seen that the blog “Aliens in this World” has posted a translation of what St Augustine said.

A friend sent the Latin to me:

Utrum quod in utero formatum adhuc est, animatum posset intellegi.

80. (21, 22–25) Si autem litigabunt duo viri, et percusserint mulierem in utero habentem, et exierit infans eius nondum formatus; detrimentum patietur, quantum indixerit vir mulieris, et dabit cum postulatione.

Mihi videtur significationis alicuius causa dici haec, magis quam Scripturam circa huiusmodi facta occupatam. Nam si illud attenderet, ne praegnans mulier percussa in abortum compelleretur, non poneret duos litigantes viros, cum possit et ab uno hoc admitti, qui cum ipsa muliere litigaverit, vel etiam non litigaverit, sed alienae posteritati nocere volendo id fecerit. Quod vero non formatum puerperium noluit ad homicidium pertinere, profecto nec hominem deputavit quod tale in utero geritur.

Hic de anima quaestio solet agitari, utrum quod formatum non est, ne animatum quidem possit intellegi, et ideo non sit homicidium, quia nec examinatum dici potest, si adhuc animam non habebat.

Sequitur enim et dicit: Si autem formatum fuerit, dabit animam pro anima. Ubi quid aliud intellegitur, nisi, et ipse morietur? Nam hoc et in caeteris ex hac occasione iam praecipit: Oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, manum pro manu, pedem pro pede, combustionem pro combustione, vulnus pro vulnere, livorem pro livore: talionis videlicet aequitate. Quae Lex ideo constituit, ut demonstraret quae vindicta debeatur. Nisi enim per Legem sciretur quid vindictae deberetur, unde sciretur quid venia relaxaret, ut dici posset: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris? Debitores igitur Lege monstrantur, ut quando ignoscitur appareat quid dimittatur. Neque enim debita dimitteremus, nisi quid nobis deberetur Lege indice disceremus. Si ergo illud informe puerperium iam quidem fuerit, sed adhuc quodammodo informiter animatum (quoniam magna de anima quaestio non est praecipitanda indiscussae temeritate sententiae), ideo Lex noluit ad homicidium pertinere, quia nondum dici potest anima viva in eo corpore quod sensu caret, si talis est in carne nondum formata, et ideo nondum sensibus praedita. Quod autem dixit: Et dabit cum postulatione quod maritus mulieris, informi excluso, dandum constituerit, non est in promptu intellegere: quippe, quod graecus habet, pluribus modis intellegitur, et tolerabilius cum postulatione dictum est, quam si aliud diceretur. Fortassis enim postulabit ut det, ut eo modo satis Deo faciat, etiamsi maritus mulierve non expetat.

This is my own rendering:

Whether what is not yet formed in the womb can be understood as being ensouled.

80. (21, 22-25) “If two men quarrel and strike a pregnant woman, and the child (infans) that is not yet formed is expelled … he will pay whatever penalty the woman’s husband declares, and he will render it upon request.”

It seems to me that this is said for the sake of signifying something rather than that Scripture is concerned about deeds of this kind. For if did address it, so that a pregnant woman who has been struck would not be forced to miscarry, it would not suppose that there were two men fighting since this could also be perpetrated by one, who fought with the woman herself, or even if he did not fight with her, still willingly acted to harm another’s offspring. But it did not wish to regard the death of an unformed child as homicide, nor did it think what is borne in the womb to be a man.

Here the question regarding the soul usually comes up, whether what is not formed cannot be understood as ensouled, and therefore it would not be homicide since it cannot be said to be determined, if it still did not have a soul.

For it goes on to say: “If it was been formed, he will give a life for a life.” What else then should be understood except that he also should die? For it has established this already in the other cases of this type: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a would for a wound, a bruise for a bruise”: namely the justice of retribution. So the law established it to show what retributions would be owed. For unless it is known by the Law what retributions are owed, how would it be known what a pardon looses, as can be said: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those in debt to us”? Debtors, therefore, are shown by the Law, as when it is not known it would be apparent what would be forgiven. For we would not forgive debts unless we had learned what is owed to us as the Law indicates. If therefore the offspring was unformed, but still in a certain way formlessly ensouled (since the great question concerning the soul must not be bound by the fear of an untested opinion), therefore the Law has did not wish to regard it as homicide, because it cannot yet be said that there is a living soul in a body that lacks sense, if it is such, not yet formed in the flesh, and therefore not yet provided with the senses. But, however, it said: “And he will render upon request what the woman’s husband established would be given for the expelled unformed offspring.” It is not easy to understand: naturally “Asioma,” what the Greek holds, is understood in several ways, and “upon request” is said to be more tolerable, than if it were said to be something else. For perhaps he would offer to render something, in order to satisfy God in this way, even if the husband or the woman did not ask.

I didn’t have a lot of time, so there may be errors.

“[...] once the child is grown, he may look back and feel, ‘I would have preferred nonexistence.’”

In this letter to Since You Asked by Cary Tennis (Warning: Some foul language), a couple considers it wrong to have a child because any harm that comes to the child would then be their fault and the child may end up preferring non-existence. I doubt that they are actually trying to make (or looking for) a moral argument, but we do encounter something of the same kind of thought in a broader sense, namely, “Is it always better for a person to exist than not to exist?”

To the ancient (and Christian) mind, this question is absolutely absurd because existence is good. This is a self-evident principle, and it used to be recognized as such. Today, we’re a little more confused, but still no one can really deny that it is better to be than not to be. After all, how can not-being be good for the thing that is not? Existence is good, plain and simple.

In fact, existence is participation in God’s Being, which He is and which is his Goodness. God is, and God is Good. As they say, God’s essence and existence are identical. So, for God what he is and that he is are the same thing. Being itself cannot not be.

For creatures, however, essence and existence are not identical. I can to some degree talk about what a unicorn is, but there are, in fact, no unicorns. Still, a tree can exist at one time and then exist no more at another time. Since the existence of creatures is a priori dependent on God, he himself maintains their existence. Creatures have no existence on their own; it is always God who keeps them existing. This brings us back to the point: existence is always good. Being is good. Evil, in fact, is a lack of being. It’s the lack of a good that should be present, a corruption in the order of good beings.

Perhaps many of us are “still thinking that evil is a substance,” as Augustine says. Perhaps not quite. I think the problem is deeper. At least a dualist or a Manichee thinks that good and evil are real things. The question from Since You Asked betrays a graver fault: a doubt about the quality of goodness as a reality. In fact, the question is only following relativism to its quasi-logical conclusion. If I decide what is good and bad for me, then I can’t decide what is good and bad for others. If I can’t decide what is good and bad for others, then if another decides that it’s bad that he exists, it would be blameworthy for me to have contributed to his existence.

The question is perhaps a species of man’s basic question about morality: “What do I have to do?” This question depends on the answers of two others: “Where am I?” and “Where am I going?” In terms of morality, these questions are basically anthropological: What am I? What is my end? How do I achieve my end? These questions presume the goodness of existence. It makes no sense for the end (purpose, goal) of human existence to be in any way non-existence. This would not be an end at all because it would, in fact, be the annihilation of the I.

If being ain’t good, ain’t nothing good.

The Financial Times recently published an excellent letter replying to a secular humanist’s assertion that religious morality is positivistic and unnecessary due to an innate and reasonable moral sense in man. The reply shows that this is the natural law and that Christian morality is based on it.

TIME Magazine has an online morality quiz, which presents a number of scenarios to which the quiz-taker responds with either “I could” or “I could not.” Even the phrasing lends itself to Emotivism.

The questions all engage the same principle (one may not do evil to bring about good) except for one, which deals with double effect. The trouble is that the questions betray a clear Consequentialist bent in the way that they’re phrased.

For example, the first question:

It’s war time, and you’re hiding in a basement with a group of other people. Enemy soldiers are approaching outside and will be drawn to any sound. If you’re found, you’ll all be killed immediately. A baby hiding with you starts to cry loudly and cannot be stopped. Smothering it to death is the only way to silence it, saving the lives of everyone in the room. Assume that the parents of the baby are unknown and not present and there will be no penalty for killing the child. Could you be the one who smothered it if no one else would?

Note, of course, that the question is not about the moral status of the action but only about whether the quiz-taker could be the one to do it, which points toward Emotivism. This question, like almost all the others boils down to “do something evil in order to achieve a good effect?”

The question which engages the principle of double effect:

An out of control trolley is heading down a track toward five unsuspecting people and will surely kill them all. You could throw a switch diverting it to a siding, but an equally unsuspecting man is standing there and the train will kill him instead. Could you throw the switch, killing one to save five?

Of course, the question at the end of the scenario, “Could you throw the switch, killing one to save five?” is not accurate since it does not distinguish the death of the one as only indirectly voluntary. You can see the Consequentialism at work: “1 dead vs. 5 dead.” No consideration about what the object of the action is, about what is actually being chosen. In this case, the correct moral evaluation is: throwing the switch to save five people is good. The death of the one person is an unintended secondary effect of the action, not a means to saving the five people. It is foreseen but not intended, and since there is no other way to save the five which would not result in the death of the one and since life is proportional to life, double effect applies to this scenario.

I returned the other day from the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual convention, which was in San Diego this year. I had never been before, but I went with some of the other seminarians from Kenrick and Dr. Kitz, our Old Testament professor.

I enjoyed the conference very much, and some of the talks I attended were very good. At a minimum, almost all of them were thought-provoking. My overall impression is that Catholics have a huge advantage in interpreting the Bible for several important reasons: the living Tradition¹, the Magisterium, the sacraments², having the lived experience of ritual and liturgy, etc.

There was one talk on morality as presented in the Gospel according to John, which was particularly good. The thesis of the presentation was basically that scholars usually presume that John contains no moral teaching (other than, obviously, the Mandatum), but that, in fact, because of the genre of the Gospel as a biography, the emphasis of the entire work is on following the example of Jesus. This is heading in the direction indicated by Veritatis Splendor, which says “The way and at the same time the content of this perfection [of the moral life] consist in the following of Jesus” (19).

From a philosophical position, it’s nice to see somebody who can see Positivism for what it is. I’m not surprised that people don’t see “moral teaching” unless it’s spelled out in the form of “do this; don’t do that” commandments. While it would be impossible for this one talk to encompass the full consequences of the direction in which it was heading, it brought to my mind the following considerations.

The question about morality is summed up in the Synoptic Gospels by the question of the rich young man: “Good teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?” In John, the question does not need to be asked, and, in fact, Jesus gives the same answer in both the Synoptics and in John. In the Synoptics, he replies “keep the commandments,” but ultimately his answer is “follow me.” In John, he tells us, “I am the [...] life.” Thus, the Person of Christ himself gives us the content of morality.

The talk also mentioned how the Mandatum has been interpreted as exclusive to “the world,” that is, as something for the Johannine community alone. The presenter did well to point out that not every instance of “the world” in John is negative. One has only to attend any sporting event to see the guy in the rainbow “wig” testifying to John 3:16.³ In fact, if we understand the Mandatum properly in the context of John 3:16 (”love one another as I have loved you“), we necessarily regard loving as Jesus loves as non-introverted.

The question this raises is: “How is that possible?” We can’t love as Jesus loves. The only way we can fulfill the great commandment, indeed, the only way we can follow Jesus is if the love of God is “poured into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). Now, especially if John is written as late as is usually thought, this Gospel presumes the sacramental life of the community.

Therefore, John answers the question about morality in very concrete terms in a catechesis on the sacraments. How is the love of God poured into our hearts? John 3:5 tells us about Baptism, which makes it possible for us to have the Spirit that gives life (Cf. John 4, John 6). John 6, especially, answers the question about morality with the Eucharist.

“What must I do to have eternal life?”
“I am the life.”
“The water that I will give will become a spring welling up unto eternal life.”
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”

The sacraments! Following Jesus is not an external imitation. Indeed, even if one were to give up his life but not have the love of God in his heart, he would profit nothing (Cf. 1 Corinthians 13). This love (the grace of Charity) is given through the sacraments. John’s catechesis to his community on the power of the sacraments is not only theologically profound but concrete; it directs them and us to the Lord where he can be found and not as if he were a distant exemplar from the past.

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1 See the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. “So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’” (Acts 8:30-31)

2 I believe that unless someone receives the Eucharist, he is not going to be able to understand the Bible; even the literal sense of the text will sometimes escape him. See the story of the Road to Emmaus in Luke 24.

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

[ ... ]

30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

3 You can thank “the brother” for the colorful phraseology.^3a
3a And for suggesting the phrase “colorful phraseology.”

Perhaps you’ve seen this disturbing story of one brother of a set of twins who survived two attempts to kill him in the womb.

When I read this, I found it to be sickening. Not only is it considered reluctantly acceptable to kill an innocent child, not only is it excused or ignored: In this story, it is actually the occasion for boasting in the child’s miraculous survival.

The whole tone of the story is: “How adorable! My baby survived my two direct attempts to kill him.”

Obviously, the mother was devastated when doctors told her that one of her children would likely die in utero and that his death would probably lead to the death of his brother. But, why would anyone accept the advice to induce the death of the child?

Sadly, I can begin to imagine something of the rationale behind the decision. Of course, it’s based on purely consequentialist ethics.

The perverse line of thinking goes like this:

1) If I do nothing, I end up with two dead children.
2) If I kill one of the children, I end up with one dead child.
3) Therefore, I should kill one of the children.

Horrifyingly, we are all conditioned to think this way in our current culture. This is one reason, for example, that people (e.g., The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism) either can’t or refuse to understand the difference between a proper application of double effect and doing evil to achieve good.

Everyone wants to look at what is considered to be the result, the outcome of the action. From that point, it’s just a matter of calculating what will achieve the “best” result.

No one wants to ask the question: “What are we actually doing?” that is, “What is the object of the action?” Even the mother’s quote: “Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die …” betrays a confusion about what is actually being done.

The whole tone of this article is reprehensible. It makes the situation sound wholesome when, in fact, it is monstrous.

But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.

[ ... ]

“The doctors couldn’t believe it when they could still hear his heartbeat the next morning.”

The Manichaeans, of whom St. Augustine is rightly regarded as the most illustrious refuter, were spirit-matter dualists. More to the point, they were soul-body dualists such that they regarded the body as evil and the soul as good. They even ascribed to the body its own “will,” which they regarded as base and evil.

Believe it or not, many many people think that Christianity–especially Catholicism–has always taught this about man: that his soul is good and his body is evil. The world thinks that Catholicism regards the body and sexuality as sinful. Even my arch-nemesis The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism claimed that the Church professes dogmas such as the perpetual virginity of Mary because it regarded the body and sex as evil. In fact, the Church has constantly dealt with heresies that introduce a division into man between soul and body: from Docetism to Descartes.

Irony of ironies, the world is dualistic and Manichaean in its approach to the human person. Just look at how we justify things these days: “I can do what I want with my body.” Besides the glaring error when this statement is used to justify abortion (what you’re doing only secondarily involves your body and is primarily intended to kill another person), what’s the reasoning? This statement means “the body has nothing to do with morality.”

For example, let’s think about so-called “homosexual unions.” I say “so-called” because homosexual actions actually divide rather than unite those who engage in them: this actually follows from what advocates for their liceity themselves claim.

Why should homosexual actions and heterosexual actions be morally equivalent? The specific difference between the two (indeed, the characteristic which even gives us the words “heterosexual” and “homosexual”) is that homosexual actions do not involve sexual complementarity while heterosexual actions do. There is simply no denying this complementarity on a physical level (to speak vulgarly, even in terms of “mechanics”).

Now, what is the argument from those who hold that the two are morally equivalent? They say that sexual complementarity on the physical level is not relevant to the morality of the action, or, in general, a person’s body or his sex does not pertain to his actions in a morally relevant way. Now, every morally relevant action is an action of the person, that is, of the subject. So, what they’re saying is that the body is divided from the person. If this were true, then it would be true that homosexual relations and heterosexual relations are morally equivalent, but it would also necessarily mean that no act of sexual intercourse could involve the persons who perform it other than by a sort of merely incidental association.

Sex would then be an act of the body, but it could never be a personal act; it could never involve love. Frightful to say, but if this line of thinking is continued, then things terrible crimes such as rape would be morally equivalent to petty theft since they would be thought to involve only the body regarded as drastically foreign to oneself.

Recall, again, the Manichaeans. They did not strive to overcome the flesh because they regarded it as evil and as a separate thing from the person: they became consumed with seeking sensual pleasure.

Men who deny the goodness of the body do not make themselves angels.

John Paul II talks about this same tendency in Veritatis Splendor:

48. [ ... ] A freedom which claims to be absolute ends up treating the human body as a raw datum, devoid of any meaning and moral values until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design. Consequently, human nature and the body appear as presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the subject and the human act. Their functions would not be able to constitute reference points for moral decisions, because the finalities of these inclinations would be merely “physical” goods, called by some “pre-moral”. To refer to them, in order to find in them rational indications with regard to the order of morality, would be to expose oneself to the accusation of physicalism or biologism. In this way of thinking, the tension between freedom and a nature conceived of in a reductive way is resolved by a division within man himself.

This moral theory does not correspond to the truth about man and his freedom. It contradicts the Church’s teachings on the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et essentialiter the form of his body. The spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby it exists as a whole — corpore et anima unus— as a person. These definitions not only point out that the body, which has been promised the resurrection, will also share in glory. They also remind us that reason and free will are linked with all the bodily and sense faculties. The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts. The person, by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator. It is in the light of the dignity of the human person — a dignity which must be affirmed for its own sake — that reason grasps the specific moral value of certain goods towards which the person is naturally inclined. And since the human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never as a mere means also implies, by its very nature, respect for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness.

49. A doctrine which dissociates the moral act from the bodily dimensions of its exercise is contrary to the teaching of Scripture and Tradition. Such a doctrine revives, in new forms, certain ancient errors which have always been opposed by the Church, inasmuch as they reduce the human person to a “spiritual” and purely formal freedom. This reduction misunderstands the moral meaning of the body and of kinds of behaviour involving it (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Saint Paul declares that “the immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sexual perverts, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers” are excluded from the Kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9). This condemnation — repeated by the Council of Trent” — lists as “mortal sins” or “immoral practices” certain specific kinds of behaviour the wilful acceptance of which prevents believers from sharing in the inheritance promised to them. In fact, body and soul are inseparable: in the person, in the willing agent and in the deliberate act, they stand or fall together.

Bolding by me.

St. Augustine wrote the following about Manichaeism (Confessions, Book V, Section 10):

I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it… I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.

No, it’s not the latest Harry Potter book, it’s the age-old question posed by devout Catholics to priests and seminarians.

What if a person confesses that he’s poisoned the wine in the chalice before Mass?

Well, I was reading today a certain book by your friend and mine (ICEL translation: “our friend”^*), one Felix Cappello, whom I’ve quoted before and I came across this example. Now, I never did end up mentioning that I did get a copy of some of his books for a very reasonable price (ten dollars per volume). My gamble also paid off, they’re not in French (as the description indicated) but in Latin as I had thought that they would be. Anyway, Volume II, De Poenitentia, was mis-bound such that the tops of many pages were not separated. So, today I finally decided to go through and cut the pages apart in the sections I wanted to read.

From Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis by Felix M. Cappello:

Item quaeritur de sacerdote, qui ex confessione noverit insidias sibi parari, aut venenum esse in vino quo debet Missam celebrare, etc., utrum possit vitare insidias sibi paratas aut Missam omittere.

Lugo ita respondet: << Non est dubium, quando illa actio vel omissio (scil. fugere insidias sibi paratas, vel omittere Missam propter notitiam veneni) non ostenderet aliis notitiam peccati nec ullum damnum poenitenti affert, quod confessionem redderet odiosam ac gravem, tunc utique posse alio praetextu fugere vel Sacrum omittere >>

At quaestio gravior est, an liceat id ipsum si, deficiente alio praetextu, ex fuga vel omissione alii, qui sunt conscii criminis, coniicerent poenitentem esse confessum illud peccatum, ita ut indirecta sigilli revelatio haberetur.

Quidam concedunt, confessarium posse nihilominus fugere vel Missam omittere.

Alii negant, ob indirectam revelationem. Quae sententia, si revera adsit revelatio indirecta, certa omnino est.

My translation:

Likewise one might ask about the priest, who knows from confession that an attack is planned against him, or that there is poison in the wine with which he should celebrate the Mass, etc. whether he can avoid the attack planned against him or omit the Mass.

Lugo responds thus: “There is not a doubt, when that action or omission (namely to flee the attack planned against oneself, or to omit the Mass on account of knowledge of poison) would not show to others knowledge of the sin nor cause some other injury to the penitent, which would render confession hateful and burdensome, that he can certainly, therefore, on another pretext flee or to omit the Sacred.”

But the more serious question is whether it is permitted if, lacking another pretext, those who are conscious of the crime would infer from flight or from the omission of something that the penitent confessed that sin, such that this would be held to be an indirect revelation of the seal.

Some concede that the confessor can nevertheless flee or omit the Mass.

Others deny this, on account of the indirect revelation. This opinion, if in reality indirect revelation is present, is altogether certain.

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* The current ICEL translation of “sacrificium meum ac vestrum” (my sacrifice and yours) is “our sacrifice” which does not accurately represent the different modes of offering the sacrifice which the priest and the faithful have. See also, for example, Christ’s repeated references in the Gospel to “my Father and yours” indicating the difference in the type of sonship (e.g., John 20:17).

Anyone familiar with the television series Star Trek: Voyager will remember the character of the holographic doctor. When the ship’s doctor was killed at the beginning of the series, a computer program–the Emergency Medical Hologram–was activated as a temporary solution. Since Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the EMH had to be utilized far more than intended by his designers. Throughout the series, the doctor’s behavior simulates more and more closely that of a normal member of the crew such that he becomes regarded by the others as another person whom they have come to know.

This theme is entertaining in Star Trek: Voyager but deadly in real life, that is, the theme of becoming a person. In the modern West, today, we often base our behavior on the premise that personhood is something to be accomplished.

There are a number of ways this is expressed:

1. Personhood is achieved by reaching a certain stage of physical development.

This is one reason why abortion is acceptable at all in our culture. While we cannot deny that from the moment of conception an embryo is a unique human being (speaking from a biological point of view), we easily deny that it is fully human by appealing to a lack of personhood. Interestingly, this runs completely counter to our tendency to materialism–after all, we can’t appeal to something immaterial if we are materialists. Materially, speaking, an embryo is just as human as anyone else.

2. Personhood is achieved by being able to perform certain functions.

Most people who support abortion will appeal to this, especially if they are confronted on the first point. This is also the error that admits things like euthanasia, etc.

3. Personhood does not intrinsically entail certain rights which must be respected.

This is a very sad error, indeed, for it denies the most basic rights of everyone. The other errors tend toward this error in practice. Claiming that a person has no intrinsic rights by virtue of being a person, leads to several horrific conclusions, e.g.: a person’s rights are granted by the state (the opposite of the American philosophy), a person who is strong enough may assert his will in an arbitrary manner (Nietzscheism), we all operate on a consensus of “polite behavior” in a society.

Those who embrace this error cannot know what love is because they recognize in no one–not even themselves–anything which by its nature is lovable.

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As usual, we have things entirely backwards.

Every human being is a person by nature. This human nature, which entails personhood, is a gift of God, and is a primary reason that human beings are in the “image of God.” God is personal; in him are Three Persons. We are personal, too. Our destiny, therefore, is a free relationship with him. This freedom is his gift to us, a key element of our personal nature.

The theory of human rights is based precisely on the affirmation that the human person, unlike animals and things, cannot be subjected to domination by others. We must also mention the mentality which tends to equate personal dignity with the capacity for verbal and explicit, or at least perceptible, communication. It is clear that on the basis of these presuppositions there is no place in the world for anyone who, like the unborn or the dying, is a weak element in the social structure, or for anyone who appears completely at the mercy of others and radically dependent on them, and can only communicate through the silent language of a profound sharing of affection. (Evangelium Vitae)

MY WIFE AND I just had an abortion. Two, actually. We walked into a doctor’s office in downtown Los Angeles with four thriving fetuses — two girls and two boys — and walked out an hour later with just the girls, whom we will name, if we’re lucky enough to keep them, Rosalind and Vivian. Rosalind is my mother’s name.

We didn’t want to. We didn’t mean to. We didn’t do anything wrong, which is to say, we did everything right. Four years ago, when Tina and I set out on this journey to have children, such a circumstance was unimaginable. And yet there I was, holding her hand, watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife’s suffering belly.

The rest of the story.

Some philosophers think that people only did things that were wrong because of a lack of knowledge. While the Beatific Vision, for instance, would be so good as to overwhelm the will making it impossible to choose anything less than God, we can’t attribute every sin to a lack of knowledge.

It is very sad when we know what we’re doing but do not do the right thing. What a failure of Charity we are all capable of, what a failure of even natural love.