Oriens wrote:
>As I understand it, he believed that animation took place
>neither at conception nor at birth, but at an intermediate
>point while the child was in the womb. The usual view,
>I believe, was that animation took place in the third
>month, but he does not mention an exact time in his
>discussion of the Sanctification of the Virgin - which is
>where you must look to find his views on the Immaculate
>Conception.
(...)
>Oriens.
>suggested the permissibility of abortion before animation
St. Thomas was not only concerned with the exact moment of animation but
also reflected the *exact* moment of the soul leaving the dying body.
We see him thus not only anticipating the discussion about
abortion but also the one about euthanasia.
(I tried in vain to find the exact references. Actually, we were
discussing the subject years ago in Paris under the direction of Alain Boureau
when I was as undergraduate student-auditor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales E.H.E.S.S. Perhaps he has published something about
it in the meantime which escaped my attention?)
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