ABSTRACT

In the mid-nineteenth century, developments in scientific research on human reproduction had reached a stage where it had little in common with Christianity. The unravelling of hereditary substances in the cell was obviously incompatible with Christian anthropology. In spite of the fact that modern science totally recast the biology that underpinned it and gave women a crucial part in procreation, Christian theology continued to place women in an inferior, nurturing position. In 1854, Pope Pius IX pronounced a dogma of Mary's Immaculate Conception. The dogma stated that the Virgin Mary was born without sin, meaning that she was miraculously exempted from the consequences of Adam's original sin. By defining the Virgin Mary as having been conceived without being tainted by original sin, Pope Pius IX erased her father from the story and safeguarded Mary's womb from contamination. After Karl Ernst von Baer's discovery of the female egg, it became clear that the mother had an equally active role in childbirth.