Does a mother carry an inhuman foetus or a human baby?b

I was watching an afternoon soap put on by the BBC called Doctors today.   I do not watch it often but most of the time it is a well informed program.  Today however the question of Abortion came up.   A young girl from Norther Ireland came to visit her sister in the UK.   She was pregnant and was looking for an abortion.    The difficulty she had was that the baby she was carrying was not that of her boyfriend.   When she went back to Northern Ireland she had an affair with a married man.   Eventually she told a nurse her problem.   She did not want her baby to grow up and find out who her father was.   The child would turn against her.    A nurse listening to her said that obviously she had thought through the issues and knew what she was doing so she should go ahead with an abortion if she so wished.    Outside the clinic there was a pro-lifer sitting with a board reading "Protect the Unborn'  whom she simply walked past.   Of course the question of whether she was killing a baby or not killing a baby was not even discussed in the clinic.   The obvious question was that if the unborn baby is not part of any discussion then why should we presented at all with this propaganda that she had thought through what she was doing.  It was just a case of killing the foetus, was it not?   Sorry I did not see any reason why she should not have had the baby, even on pro-choice hard case propaganda.   Why did she assume that when the child grew up it would turn against her when she knew who the father was?   She was also too young, she said, at 23 to take on the responsibility.   But a baby surely brings a bond of love between a mother and child.  What the mother did not want really was that her adultery should become common knowledge.   Abortion was the escape route for her mistake and the baby had to pay the price.   It is sad that those who shout for pro-choice are so unaware of the love a child can bring.  The probability in this case was that the young mother would love the child so much that the child would respond to that love and rather than condemn her for the affair with the father would thank her for giving him or her life.  Because of there own experiences they have hardened their hearts and this explains their absolute refusal to recognise that there even is a baby in the womb.   The baby is alive and soon kicking yet they foolishly claim it is not human.     If it is not human then is it an insect, is it a virus, what is it?

The Early Church spoke a great deal about abortion and the fact it was murder.   Whereas it is true today that we do not condemn women for abortion since we do not know the circumstances we nevertheless must as Catholics proclaim that abortion is against the teachings of Jesus Christ as attested to by the early Fathers of the Church.  If we turn to our Bibles and look at James 2:26 he tells us "The body without the spirit is dead.    The soul is the life principle of the body, what makes it alive.   Since from the time of Conception the child's body is alive {As shown by the fact that it is growing} the unborn child must already have its soul"   What Jesus is saying is that at its conception it is a complete human being, with a body and sou just like you and I.   Of course I have quoted from the Bible so there are those who will justify themselves by arguing something else, for that is what the Bible has become among Christians a book that is used to justify our pride in our own interpretations so that we can start our own Churches.   So let us again look at the Early Church and see if James was on his own and everyone else disagreed.

Didache [commandments of the Apostles]     "......you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill what is begotten......"

Letter of Barnabas [c.AD 75]  ..you shall not slay the child by procuring abortion, nor shall you destroy it after it is born.

Athenagoras of Athens [c. AD177]  "When we say that those women who use drugs to bring on  abortion, commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for their abortion, on what principle shall we commit murder.  For it does not belong to the same person to regard the fetus in the womb as a created person, and therefore a object of God's careened when it has passed into life to kill it"

Tertullian of Carthage [Apology 9 AD 197  "In our case, murder being forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance.  To hinder a birth is merely a speedier killing, not does it matter whether you take away a life that is born or destroy one that is coming to the birth.  That is a man who is going to be one, you have the fruit already in the seed"

So many early Church Fathers agreed.    Hyppolitus, Basil, Jerome  among others.    Fortunately the Fathers also agreed that abortion is forgivable  and forgiveness is as close as the nearest confessional.

In the example at the start of this blog this young lady was indeed in distress and needed sound advice which the nurse, pandering to secular values, did not give her.  Therefore the girl is to be loved and not condemned.   In the end the Church is there not to condemn but to forgive, for Jesus never came to condemn anyone - just to offer love and forgiveness.

Pray for the unborn and the mothers in difficulty.