"Among other points, the letter mentions two sticking points of the abortion debate: quickening and conscience. I was surprised, however, to find some of the responses to the letter reflecting a weariness towards these two points. It's true that these arguments have been trotted out both to support abortion and oppose it. Still, while worn and frayed from overuse and even misuse, arguments about quickening and conscience offer important insights."

An attempt to see what Pater Theologiae himself would have thought had he had access to modern technology. The concept of anima is key, for what Aquinas and others meant by animation and thought happened at 40 to 80 days was pretty much what we know happens at conception.

Reminds me of people who attack the Ptolemaic system as being a Catholic attempt to silence science. Ptolemy, of course, was a pagan scientist who arrived at his conclusion not by looking up in the sky and seeing if the sun went around the earth (duh, it does). Instead he took measurements of stars and tried to see if there was any parallex 6 months apart when the earth would be on opposite sides of the sun. Think holding a finger in front of you and closing one eye and then the other. Of course, if you move far enough away, there won't be any parallex. It would be as if you had one eye at the center of your head. Sort of. Ptolemy, unable to find any parallex, concluded that the Earth had to be stationary, scientifically. That, of coruse, was the greatest argument against heliocentrism, and one that took a little while to be rectified by more accurate measurements. Science, as usual, was at play.