"If there is a silver lining from this ruling out of Alabama, it’s that people are waking up to the radical Christian worldview that has infected right-wing politics and the judiciary…and the threat it poses to our nation."
In addition to a 17th-century Dutch theologian (Petrus van Mastricht) and the King James bible, one of the authorities cited by Alabama chief justice Parker in his ruling on IVF is the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas. Parker's ruling cites Aquinas six times.
As someone with an M.A. and Ph.D. in historical theology — from a Catholic university — I know a little about Aquinas. Here are some salient points:
• Aquinas' neoscholastic theology was long the foundation of Catholic theology in general.
• Aquinas' natural-law theology, which draws heavily on the philosophy of Aristotle (and on Aristotle's biological assumptions), remains foundational for official Catholic teaching about sexual morality.
• This theology teaches that "nature" demonstrates, if we think about it, that the purpose of sexual intercourse is reproduction.
• Therefore anything — anything at all — that interferes with the "natural" purpose of human reproduction is deeply sinful. Whether that "anything" be masturbation, homosexual sex, contraception, coitus interruptus: anything.
• With this line of reasoning, Aquinas taught that for a man to rape a woman is less sinful than for a man to masturbate. Rape at least does not thwart the "natural" purpose of sexuality, while masturbation does.
• Hovering in the background of this thinking is the assumption — here Aquinas is indebted to Aristotle, who knew nothing much about the actual biological facts of reproduction — that sperm is sacred. Sperm is life itself, in this way of thinking. Wasting sperm militates against life itself.
• Aristotle and Aquinas thought that reproduction involves the penis placing in the passive receptacle of the womb a "little man," a homunculus.
• In pregnancy, a woman is merely an incubator for what really matters in the process of reproduction, the "little man" that the male, as the active agent of reproduction, places in the passive receptacle provided by the female.
• Sperm, what happens to it, where it goes, what it does, whether its potential to create life is respected, is supreme in this sexual ethical system. Males count supremely. Women are…just there.
So OF COURSE Alabama judge Parker would be a fanboy of Thomas Aquinas, since what he and his party want to do with their attacks on abortion and IVF and, in all likelihood soon, contraception, is to control women.
What Parker et al. are about is finding ancient authorities imbued with patriarchal, pre-scientific assumptions, to impose as "the" authorities on 21st-century thinking about human reproduction.
Parker et al. intend to impose those ancient, pre-modern, pre-scientific, misogynistic authority figures —by way of highly selected texts — on all of us, and to claim that these highly selected texts represent "the" tradition set in stone for all eternity. Take it or leave it. "The" tradition says. And law now says, as it cites these authorities.
Reject this and call it nonsense, and you're rejecting God and calling down "His" wrath.
#Mississippi cited that line of reasoning in its case to challenge Roe at #SCOTUS, a move his supporters say helped pave the way for Roe’s fall in 2022.
The day the #Alabama SC released its #embryo decision & Parker’s concurrent ruling, the chief justice said in an online broadcast that “God created government” & that #Christians should take it back from the “possession” of others.
The comments came during an interview w/ #QAnon supporter #JohnnyEnlow, author of “The Seven Mountain Prophecy.” Enlow describes #TomParker as a “true pioneer” of the movement, while Parker thanked Enlow for promoting the #SevenMountainMandate.
#TomParker added in the #QAnon interview that the country’s original form of govt was based on the #Bible, a common view of supporters of the #SevenMountainMandate, & that its #laws should reflect that. Scholars criticize that interpretation….
Still, Parker’s support for the movement is not new.
“The very God of Holy Scriptures, the Creator, is the source of #law, life, & liberty,” he said in 2005 on his FIRST DAY as an #Alabamajustice.
Justice #TomParker, who made the #Alabama ruling regarding #embryos, had this to say last week: "God created government, and the fact that 'we' have let it go into the possession of 'others' is heartbreaking...." He believes in the Seven Mountain Mandate, a doctrine which calls on #Christians to control the "seven mountains" of society.
He quoted Genesis in his #sermon — I’m sorry, his concurring opinion — in the AL ruling that turned #IVF on its head by defining #FrozenEmbryos as children.
He quoted 17th century Dutch #theologian Petrus Van Mastricht. Ya know, good ole Van Mastricht. He quoted a 16th century #Bible – because older is closer to God, maybe – & quoted the #6thCommandment, thou shalt not kill.
He quoted Thomas Aquinas & John Calvin & one of Roy Moore’s old pals at the Foundation for #Moral Law in Montgomery. He wrote of the “wrath of God.”
“It is as if the People of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah & applied it to every unborn person in this state: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you.’”
Did I say it wasn’t a sermon? It was definitely a sermon.