So, ensoulment……
Ensoulment means exactly what it sounds like – the process whereby
a human being receives his or her soul.
Variations of Ensoulment
Depending on the time period and on the religion, there have
been a number of different theories over the centuries about exactly when the
soul enters the human body. The current Catholic teaching, which seems to have
spread to other branches of Christianity, is that “The rational soul is present
from the instant of conception” (Catholicism.org).
In Islam, the soul is said to enter the foetus after 120 days, after which time it is termed “a person”. This is usually termed “delayed ensoulment”, as it doesn’t happen at the moment
of conception. In Christianity, Saint Thomas Aquinas was also a proponent of delayed
ensoulment, saying that it happened after 40 days for boys and 80 days for
girls. Aquinas did, however, believe that even before ensoulment, abortion was always
wrong as it violated natural law.
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| St. Thomas Aquinas |
Catholic teaching has changed over the centuries though, tweaked
by theological discussions and references to the nature of Jesus Christ and to certain
passages in the Bible. The theology is quite tortuous and complex, but it seems
to rest on the hint in some Bible verses that Jesus’ soul and body were created at the same time, and because “Jesus is
“like us in all respects except for sin,” then this is also true of all human beings, and we get our soul at the moment
of conception too.
This dogma seems to have started out as a Catholic tradition,
(“Catholic
theologians in modern times have generally said that ensoulment
happens at conception” - firstthingsfirst.com)
and has since spread to elements of Evangelical Christianity. Whatever
the basis for this belief and the background to it, it is now the dominant
position for traditionalist Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals, especially in
the United States.
Opposition to Abortion
The logic behind opposition to abortion is now clear – a human
person is marked by his or her possession of a soul (actually called a “rational
soul” by some theologians). Once any entity receives its soul, it is then by
definition human. And if the soul enters the embryo at the moment of conception
– the very second when sperm and egg fuse – then of course that embryo is a human
person just the same as me sitting here typing, the kids next door laughing, the
elderly man walking down the street. We all have souls, therefore we are all people.
And if we are people, it is murder to end any of our lives.
Therefore abortion is murder as it is the ending of the life of something that
has a soul.
All of this is perfectly fine; people have a right to
believe what they want, and to change their minds, if they so wish. Most religions
believe in some kind of spiritual essence that each human being possesses, but
they differ on the nature of this essence, and on when humans receive the
spirit.
Lack of Evidence
But what they all have in common is that not one of them
offers the slightest scrap of evidence for their beliefs or claims. Christianity
tells us not only that human beings have a soul but that this soul enters the
embryo at the moment of conception. And apart from appeal to certain Bible
passages, there is not one scintilla of evidence or proof for either of these
claims.
Never mind when ensoulment occurs, do human beings really
have such a thing as a soul in the first place? What does it look like? Where
does it reside? Does it change as we get older? What does it contain?
Christians cannot answer these questions, because the whole
concept is simply an idea that people hold as an explanation for why humans and
animals are different, for why humans are supposedly rational beings and
animals are not. But evolutionary science and biology easily explains why we
are so different, so much smarter and more capable of thought and language than our
animal cousins. The soul is a concept that people are free to believe
if they want, but which now explains nothing in the real world, and for which
there is no evidence.
And so, is there any evidence for the idea that an embryo is
ensouled at the moment of conception? Of course there isn’t. It is a topic of
discussion among theologians and an accepted dogma, just as Limbo used to be an
accepted dogma, before the Catholic Church jettisoned this idea a few years ago
because it was losing converts to Islam.
No Explanation
What we are left with is a whole anti-abortion movement
based almost exclusively on a centuries-old Christian dogma for which there is
zero evidence. And this is why I haven’t been able to find any justification on
No campaign websites for their claim that a two-week old embryo is a fully
human person; this is because the only justification lies in an ancient religious
dogma that has no basis in reality, and which will not be taken seriously by a
twenty-first century populace that has access to other forms of information.
So instead of offering a defence of their position, they
simply keep stating over and over and over again that the foetus is a baby, the
embryo is a person, is a human being, hoping that no one will notice that all
they are doing is repeating themselves and are not offering anything concrete
to back up their extremely suspect claims.
I am not sure how many of the actual present-day
anti-abortion activists know about or believe in the doctrine of ensoulment. Most
of them are motivated by religion in one form or another, and all of the
anti-abortion groups in Ireland and the U.S. are connected to religion. I saw a
small No march in my home town of Sligo on Saturday; they walked down the main street
of the town carrying placards and were led by what looked like a friar in long
robes and carrying a large cross. They then made their way to the Presbyterian
Church in the town for what looked like a meeting or council.
Basically a Religious Position
There are anti-abortion atheists, but not many. The anti-abortion
position is one that seeks to impose a religious doctrine – one that has no basis
in fact and which is based on superstition, ignorance and fantasy – on the general
population by making laws in line with this dogma. It is theocracy in action;
an attempt by the old guard who used to run this country – who were allowed to
run this country by the people who should have been doing it – to say that they
are the righteous ones, they are our moral betters, that we should do as we are
told.
But these are the same people that gave us the Laundries, the
Mother and Baby Homes, the nightmare of Sean Fortune and Ivan Payne, the Tuam
babies, censorship and all of the other toxic elements that they injected into
our society since Independence. They contributed to the death of Ann Lovett, they ruined countless lives with their adherence to nonsense dogma, their intolerance of dissent. They have no credibility.
Voting
I am voting Yes. Of course I am voting Yes. There is no
other rational choice. The topic of abortion, of when we can call a foetus a
human being and of what constitutes “humanness” is an incredibly complex, messy
question. It needs to be debated seriously and respectfully, and a lot of
factors need to be taken into consideration.
The anti-abortion side, though, does not want to deal with
complexity. They want black-and-white. They do not want to engage in serious
debate as they minds are already made up by their dogmatic positions, inherited
from centuries and centuries of doctrine based on a fundamental ignorance of
the nature of humanity. They want simplicity, they want to be told what to believe
and then to believe this absolutely, without any reference to the facts.
I am voting Yes; of course I am voting Yes. There is no
other rational choice.
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