Medical Breakthrough

Recently I was discussing the evidence for a medical link between the pill and abortion.

I offered that drug companies have progressively reduced the amount of estrogen in the pill; this has resulted in a drop in the number of blood clots. With the reduced estrogen, however, there has been an increase in “breakthrough ovulation” in which the estrogen level is so low that it doesn’t sufficiently suppress ovulation (i.e. it is simply a plain old ovulation). When fertilization occurs in this circumstance, implantation within the nutrient lining of the womb is prevented by the pill through a hardening of the lining of the womb. And this is an induced micro-abortion at one week of life -- source: http://www.lifeissues.org/abortifacients/pill.html

This netted the following response: “Are you aware that the cell mass can split until day 14 because the cells are totipotential ...which is after implantation and thus divide into twins and souls cannot divide? Individuation and the primitive streak occur thereafter…and it’s every case because in the lab, the cell mass can be teased into twinning. Calling the first 14 days as equivalent to a real abortion is not accurate. Persons don’t divide into twins or quints etc…totipotential cell masses do.” I was also provided a link to the “Theological Studies” by the liberal Lisa Cahill.

I responded that such a formulation baked the conclusion into the premise: “Persons don’t divide into twins or quints etc…totipotential cell masses do” assumes that early-stage fertilized cells are not humans. Unsupported assertion does not an argument make.

The Cahill study, meanwhile, simply misstates the Catholic Church’s teaching – e.g. that the modern Church has “tended to view human life as personal from ‘conception’” based on “improved scientific data.” That modern Catholic scientists rely on the latest science is not a fact that could ever have produced the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Giving weight to a heretic like Richard McCormick does no good to Cahill’s position either.

Also, while Aquinas quibbled over the simultaneity of conception and the presence of the soul (he ended up being incorrect on that point), he also recognized that even absent a soul, ending the life of the unborn is still murder – something that is not possible for an undifferentiated cell mass. Even when the philosophical opinion of the succession of souls was accepted, abortion was still forbidden, and was still considered an abortion even though it was not certain if a human soul was present. Thus we find amongst the list of moral errors condemned by Bl. Pope Innocent XI in 1679, proposition 34, which states that "it is permitted to bring about an abortion before the animation of the fetus". This is what liberals commentators propose by their 14 day distinction. Proposition 35 states that no homicide is committed in an abortion, since it seems probable that the fetus lacks a rational soul. This is also what these people are saying. They are condemned by the Catholic Church. Even the post-conciliar Magisterium is very clear on this issue, such as Donum vitae, and indicates that the fetus must be regarded as a human being from conception – i.e. as having a soul.

Finally, one might ask if an unlimited number of angels can dance on the head of a needle, why can’t the fertilized matter that will soon divide into twins serve as host to multiple souls? A soul, after all, takes up no space. The better answer, though, is that it is true that two souls cannot be contained in the one matter, later separating to make two individuals when the matter separates. One living being can have only one soul, which is the form of the one living being. The second soul has to be created and infused into the matter when it separates from the first blastocyst. It might, of course, be difficult for us to determine which is first and which is second, but the second soul is only created when the matter is separated. Likewise with other multiple births.

Thus, the point remains: when fertilization occurs after an instance of breakthrough ovulation, implantation within the nutrient lining of the womb is prevented by the pill through a hardening of the lining of the womb. And this is an induced micro-abortion at one week of life.