> JDG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> >>JDG wrote:
> >> ... and until the scientific discovery of ovum
> >> and sperm, there probably wasn't much theological
> >> difference between abortion and contraception.
> >I _think_ I read somewhere about roman condoms,
> made of some
> >animal internal body parts. I don't know how
> effective they were. And
> >there were anti-conception herbs.
> Yes, but if you don't know that an "ovum" and a
> "sperm" exists, and rather
> think of things in terms of "seed" and "soil" - it
> can be easy to imagine
> why a theological distinction between abortion and
> contraception never really developed.
But the difference exists, in science and the real
world. Just as we reject the ancient idea that woman
was magic and the only source of new life, so we
reject the notion that 'wasting seed' is a sin.
Preventing conception _is not_ the same as abortion.
What you do with your body in your private life is
none of my business.
What I do with mine is none of yours.
It's rather a non-sequitur, but the notion that a man
'wasting seed'* is a sin, while a woman undergoing
'housecleaning' after non-fertilization of an egg is
merely considered 'unclean' and unfit for company, as
in Muslim and other faiths, raises a few questions.
These old and tired memes need to be mercifully shot
down.
*Although IIRC the _real_ sin of Onan was not
providing his dead brother with a child, by
impregnating his brother's wife -- at the time, that
was the culturally proper thing for a brother to do.
Debbi
Nonsense Genes Maru
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