Aristotle on Abortion
I was flipping through my copy of The Politics the other day (yes, this is the sort of thing I do with my spare time) and I came across this passage:
If contrary to these arrangements copulation does take place and a child is conceived, abortion should be procured before the embryo has acquired life and sensation; the presence of life and sensation will be the mark of division between right and wrong here.
Our modern knowledge of fetal development tells us that brain waves can be recorded and the embryo responds to touch by around the 6th week of pregnancy, so applying Aristotle's "life and sensation" standard would at minimum restrict abortion to the 1st half of the 1st trimester of pregnancy.
Why is this interesting? First, because Aristotle's views cannot be said to derive in any way from Christian revelation or Catholic dogma, but purely from reason and natural law. Second, because I found it not in his works on metaphysics or ethics but specifically in his work on politics. Clearly Aristotle did not consider abortion a matter of private religious or ethical opinion, he simply assumed it was a proper subject of public policy.
This once again refutes the claim that the pro-life position is inherently theological or a matter of Christians "imposing their religion" on others. Of course abortion is and must be a political issue.
The Lost Generation
I have a small core group of friends that I've known since high school; we all went to college in the Bay Area and stayed in touch ever since, though the number of us who still live here dwindles. None of these friends are remotely religious, they range from nonpracticing but vaguely spiritual to agnostic to outright atheist in their beliefs. I suspect this contributed substantially to my own gradual loss of faith during my high school and college years, and therefore in this regard they were a very bad influence on me indeed, a somewhat painful conclusion as these have been the dearest and most valued friends in my life. Not only that, but they are all very bright, top students, and good people: kind, loyal, generous, and idealistic.
Now here's the twist: every one of them is at least nominally a Catholic. I'm pretty sure they were all baptized, and they all come from Catholic families, though mostly of the type that only went to Mass for baptisms, weddings, funerals, and perhaps the occasional Christmas or Easter.
I certainly never sought out lapsed Catholics for my circle of friends, nor did I give it any thought at the time, but in retrospect it's a highly interesting phenomena. It is as though we were subconsciously drawn together, perhaps due to cultural similarities, or maybe because the residual effects of a vaguely Catholic upbringing imparted the good qualities I listed above. A further interesting pattern is that each of these friends' parents had divorced, and I have to assume this was at least a factor in their respective families drifting away from the Faith.
I'm pondering all this tonight because I just learned that my friend's wife, whom I've known since they first met nine years ago and who is another of my dearest friends, also comes from a family of nonpracticing Catholics. And, true to form, her parents also divorced when she was very young. I seem to have surrounded myself with a whole lost generation of lapsed Catholics whose families were torn apart by the scourge of divorce that runs rampant through our society.
