Abortion

In the modern period, beginning with the reign of Pope Pius IX, the Church came around to firmly distancing itself from earlier notions of delayed “ensoulment.” For Pius, all forms of abortion constituted homicide regardless of when in the cycle of pregnancy they were committed. The encyclical Apostolicace sedis, issued in 1869, completely eliminated the distinction between the souled and unsouled fetus.

More recent Catholic thinking on abortion has tended to follow the implications of the 1869 encyclical and concern itself with the protection of the embryo from the moment of conception with no thought of any period of delay during which the fetus is not considered fully human. The idea of the “right to life” is applied to the fetus meaning that it has the potential for fully human life at conception and this has been linked to a broader “pro-life” ethic, which incorporates a profound respect for life at any stage and includes opposition to the death penalty among other things. 

Meet the Expert: Uta Ranke-Heinemann