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person, since the majority of conceptions never result in natural birth. Here again is the article from 'Where Peter Is' that addresses this Personhood issue. If "Just Wars" allow the killing of real persons, how is it that an innocent woman cannot choose to end a pregnancy that was unjustly forced or coerced when the fetus isn't defined by the RCC as even a person?

Has the woman no right to her own body and life in your calculus?

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Personhood and Catholic Teaching

From the beginning of the Church, the Magisterium has always been clear in its condemnation of abortion at any stage as a moral evil. That said, prior to our modern understanding of fetal development, the Church has not always been firm on this question of personhood.

Thomas Aquinas, for example held a theory of “delayed animation,” which to him meant that ensoulment occurred at quickening – when the fetus began to move. This was believed to be at 40 days gestation for males and 80 days of gestation for females. This theory was based on Aristotle and erroneous medieval notions of embryology. Aquinas’s position on delayed animation was even cited in the majority decision in the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which established abortion as a constitutional right in the US (ROE v. WADE, 410 U.S. 113 (1973): IV.3).

Aquinas’s idea was reflected in the imposition of different canonical and civil penalties for early- and late-term abortions. But even still, the Catholic Church has never sanctioned abortion. That has never stopped supporters of legal abortion from using it in their arguments, however.

This was reenforced by a 1974 document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Declaration on procured abortion. The declaration acknowledged that there was a personhood debate, but, like Pope Francis, stressed that these were not grounds upon which to justify abortion. The congregation stressed that modern science has made it clear when life begins, and that uncertainty about personhood does not justify ending a life (emphasis added):

From the first instant, there is established the program of what this living being will be: a man, this individual man with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its capacities requires time – a rather lengthy time – to find its place and to be in a position to act. The least that can be said is that present science, in its most evolved state, does not give any substantial support to those who defend abortion. Moreover, it is not up to biological sciences to make a definitive judgment on questions which are properly philosophical and moral such as the moment when a human person is constituted or the legitimacy of abortion. From a moral point of view this is certain: even if a doubt existed concerning whether the fruit of conception is already a human person, it is objectively a grave sin to dare to risk murder. “The one who will be a man is already one” (13).

During the papacy of Saint John Paul II, the Magisterium began to insist that we consider personhood as if it begins at the moment of conception, however. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul taught this forcefully: “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life” (60). A few years earlier, the CDF produced a document, Donum Vitae (“Instruction on respect for human life”), which made a similar point: “The human being must be respected – as a person – from the very first instant of his existence” (5.I.1).

Note however, that both the encyclical and the instruction call for the child in the womb “to be respected” as a person from the moment of conception, without definitively teaching that the embryo is a person. Donum Vitae mentions the personhood debate later in the section, stating, “This Congregation is aware of the current debates concerning the beginning of human life, concerning the individuality of the human being and concerning the identity of the human person.” Donum Vitae then quotes from the 1974 CDF document and adds the conclusion, “The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable.”

In 2008, this point was again reiterated by the CDF, then led by Cardinal William Levada under Pope Benedict XVI. In the document Dignitas Personae, the Congregation stated, “If Donum vitae, in order to avoid a statement of an explicitly philosophical nature, did not define the embryo as a person, it nonetheless did indicate that there is an intrinsic connection between the ontological dimension and the specific value of every human life” (5).

What does all of this mean? Well, for one thing, it is clear that the Magisterium has acknowledged on multiple occasions that there is a debate about personhood. It is also clear that the Church has not always considered the life of a human person to begin at conception, nor has the Church definitively taught this. That said, the Church has always regarded abortion to be evil from the moment of conception. More recently, the Church has pushed back against the idea that “delayed personhood” is relevant to its position on the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception. It has taught instead that life, from the moment of conception should be treated and respected as a human person. And in this, Pope Francis has always been in line with Catholic Tradition.
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