Could we argue, for example, that God has also given human beings freedom of choice and that humans as responsible agents should be free to block possible procreation as they may see fit to do so?
Digression: By definition, Catholic moral theology involves God-talk. So Catholic moral theology would attribute human freedom of choice to being a gift from God, because in Catholic theology God is understood to be the creator of the entire evolutionary cosmos and all forms of life, including of course human life. End of digression.
But if we were to elevate human freedom of choice to the level of importance that it could be used to argue against Pope Pius VI's basic argument against birth control, wouldn't we thereby be establishing human freedom of choice as an important consideration to consider in connection with legalized abortion in the first trimester?
Now, Dr. Steinfels sets aside the Catholic bishops' use of the expression "moment of conception" in the abortion debate. But he allows their "moment of conception" argument to define the framework of his own arguments regarding biological markers.
In the spirit of trying to be pragmatic about the abortion debate, Dr. Steinfels says that "Catholic and others opposed to abortion should strive for the legal protection of unborn life not from conception but from that point where not one but a whole constellation of converging arguments and intuitions can be brought to bear" (page 18).
But does Dr. Steinfels actually expect that U.S. Catholic bishops and their priests would be willing to set aside their insistence of the "moment of conception" in order to embrace his arguments about alternative biological markers? After all, have we recently seen the U.S. Catholic bishops set aside a position they have advanced in public debate?
Ah, but perhaps Dr. Steinfels is does not expect to persuade the U.S. Catholic bishops and their priests to change their position regarding the "moment of conception." Instead, he may be trying to persuade his fellow Catholics not to follow the bishops' teaching about the "moment of conception."
But Dr. Steinfels' alternative biological marker is "eight weeks of development -- when the embryo is now recognized as a fetus, all organs are present that will later be developed fully, the heart has been pumping for a month, electrical activity in its brain is discernible, it has distinctly human appearance, responds to stimulation of its nose or mouth and is over an inch in size" (page 18). He says that he also proposed this set of biological markers many years ago -- to no avail apparently.
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