Timb Hoswell

Aquinas, the Zika Virus and the Argument for Catholic Abortion Timb Hoswell

In ""Aquinas, The Zika Virus and the Argument for Catholic Abortion"" Timb D. Hoswell argues that a return to the doctrine of ensoulment, as evinced by the Middle Church Fathers and enlightened by Aquinas would provide grounds for limited cases of Catholic Abortion within the scope and cosmos of Catholic Philosophy. The doctrine of ensoulment contains the principle that 'only a body fit for rational ensoulment can be rationally ensouled'. Thus in cases of the Zika Virus where the damage is of such severity it results in a privation of the human form, rational ensoulment is impossible, and thus abortion is not an act of murder, nor homicide since the effects of the virus place the foetus beyond rational ensoulment. The book also argues for Catholic reincarnation based on Christ's revelation that John the Baptist is Elijah, as well the possibility of a soul for Artificial Intelligence, clones, alien life forms and other forms of rational being with an embryogenesis different from our own.