Sir, - The politicians are defining abortion and St Aquinas must be spinning in his grave. Catholic theologian Ranke Heinemann wrote in a book The Catholic Church and Sexuality that abortion was always a controversial issue and there never was a definitive church teaching on it. It has been documented that in 1869 the Pope changed the definition of abortion and invoked infallibility one year later. Prior to that it was recorded as a moral, or sexual, sin.
Heinemann quoted the most important Catholic theologian of the 20th century, Karl Rahner "that he was inclined to the successive animation theory (when a person is a person) without specifying the instant it occurs, and that it had consequences for the assessment of abortion". He also wrote: "It cannot be inferred from the church's dogmatic definition that it would be contrary to faith to assume, that the leap to spirit person happened only during the embryo's development. No theologian would claim the ability to prove that interrupting a pregnancy is, in every case, the murder of a human being. Documented 1962."
No doubt the divine spirit will be in The Dβil to guide the men with his best light. The women will recall St Paul's injunction and remain silent. - Yours, etc.,
M. Lyder, Dartry, Dublin 6.