As a second-year student at Oxford, aged 19, I switched from history to PPP (philosophy, psychology and physiology) and my tutor, Elizabeth Anscombe, who didnt hold with political philosophy, said: Right, I will send you to Mary Warnock! So I spent a month with Mary having tutorials, writing essays and reading books by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Marx. She was 16 years older than me, a mother of five and a fellow of St Hughs College. I used to bicycle up there and wed have some really good conversations. I was struck by how fun and jolly she was.

Mary was modest and practical and a very good listener. For her, it was always about the substance of the conversation. Ego really wasnt her thing.

After that, I didnt see her again for a long time. In 1966, she became headmistress of Oxford High School for girls, which is a very striking thing for an academic who really loves her subject, and wrote more than 20 books on it, to take on. Later, she went back into the university world. Her career was constrained, not in any way that she resented, by the fact that her husband, Geoffrey Warnock, was also a prominent philosopher, who later became vice chancellor of Oxford University, so she felt that he needed quite a lot of support, and I suspect some of her moves and reversals reflected that.

There are many people who would not be alive today, but for the approach it took to IVF

The next I became aware of Mary was when she chaired the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology in the 1980s. Its difficult now to remember how fraught this was. The key moral issue in many peoples minds was that the early embryo is a person, so you cant be complicit in its destruction. But its not very easy to see how you do IVF without first doing the experimental work, and then the further work thats needed with each procedure to discover whether a particular embryo is viable. These were the most delicate moral questions, and what Mary is rightly celebrated for is that she took them so seriously, listened well that was her great gift, I think and conducted a very long, slow and effective process which ended up in the human fertilisation and embryology system that we now have. Its been amended a couple of times, but its a piece of legislation that has stood the test of time and is widely envied.

I next met her in the House of Lords where she was a fellow crossbencher and we would always have a good chat. She was a late joiner, like most crossbenchers, and neither of us was enormously vocal. We listened hard and did what we could. After she retired from the Lords, she would come in from time to time and wed always have a quick chat in the corridor. Her hearing like my own was not so good, but she was always very alert and energetic.

She once claimed that she was never a real blood and bones philosopher, or much good at the subject, but I do not believe that. She emerged from a very distinctive philosophical culture, as one of a formidable group of women in philosophy posts in Oxford who probably would not have got their jobs, or would have had a harder time getting them, had it not been for the war and large numbers of male philosophers off serving in the forces. While a lot of Oxford philosophy in that generation was extremely influenced by AJ Ayer and logical positivism, Mary Warnock, like Iris Murdoch, wrote on existentialism. They were interested in the virtues, in the imagination, in what we now call action theory, and were very removed from the positivistic culture that dominated in Oxford at the time.

What Mary will be most remembered for, though, is her contribution to public life. Most public reports have limited effect, but her report on fertilisation and embryology has had a profound influence. There are many people who would not be alive today, but for the approach it took to IVF. It is fascinating to think that one person, by being reasonable and a good listener, can have such an impact.

More:
Mary Warnock remembered by Onora O'Neill | Books - The Guardian

As a historian who has spent a career studying pregnancy and birth, I always look forward to Advent. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, the scripture passages read aloud in Christian churches feature not just one, but two stories of miraculous pregnancies that end in safe and happy births. The more famous, of course, is the story of Marys pregnancy with Jesus.

After having spent 15 years writing a book about miscarriage, though, it is Elizabeths story I find most poignant.

As told in the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth was an older relative of Marys who had always wished for a child but had not been able to conceive. She and her husband were rewarded for their faith and good works by a late-in-life pregnancy, past the age when either thought it was possible, of a child who the angel Gabriel promised would be a great holy leader.

Like all Bible stories, the telling of Elizabeths pregnancy is embedded in the patriarchal assumptions of its time, and told through a male lens. Luke assumed that their childlessness was due specifically to Elizabeths bodily deficiency, her barrenness. He presumed that her husband, Zechariah, prayed for a son rather than a daughter. And he described Elizabeth as grateful to God for the pregnancy because it removed the disgrace of barrenness. Until quite recently, these assumptions of Lukes would have been generally shared by those who heard the passages in church or read them in the Bible.

But even within a patriarchal culture, I suspect that if we had Elizabeths version of the tale, there would be more to it. I imagine that while Elizabeth was indeed grateful to have the social stigma of infertility lifted, she also wanted a child to love. Countless women over the millennia have surely imagined the same when they heard this story and empathized with her situation. Fully appreciating Elizabeths story requires layering human empathy and historical understanding.

When Elizabeth found herself pregnant, Luke says, she went into seclusion. She must have been shocked, wildly hopeful, yet doubtful that this could really be a viable pregnancy. In Lukes telling, Gabriel had struck Zechariah speechless after announcing the coming conception as punishment for Zechariahs lack of faith that Elizabeth really could have a child. Elizabeth had no way to know of the angels reassurances.

Elizabeth had entered the sixth month of her pregnancy when her young relative, Mary, who had just received her own bewildering visit from the angel Gabriel foretelling her pregnancy with Jesus, came to visit her. The moment Mary greeted her, Elizabeths baby leaped in the womb.

Quickening.

It is easy to rush past this crucial moment in Elizabeths story, hurrying to Elizabeths most famous words, when, filled with the holy Spirit, she proclaimed to Mary, Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

But what sparked that inrushing of the Spirit?

Quickening. The first felt movements of her child in the womb, the baby who would become John the Baptist. The biblical passage specifies that Elizabeth had already entered the sixth month of her pregnancy, perhaps 23 or 24 weeks pregnant, and as any woman who has been pregnant knows, quickening ought to have happened by then. While today women are often blas about quickening, counting on ultrasound for a more reliable account of what is happening in their wombs, until the late 20th century, women and doctors alike treated quickening as a meaningful marker of the health of a pregnancy. Women and doctors in earlier times knew that the womb sometimes grew objects that were not babies tumors, or molar pregnancies. Sometimes women experienced swelling of the belly from illness rather than pregnancy. Elizabeth must surely have been anxious for confirmation that her pregnancy was genuine.

But quickening held even more profound significance: In Elizabeths time, and indeed for many centuries after, people regarded quickening not just as confirmation of pregnancy, but they also believed that the soul entered the body at quickening. Before quickening, a fetus might be growing, but to them it was not, in any meaningful sense, alive. Elizabeths quickening, then, was understood to be the moment that she became pregnant with a living, ensouled child.

Until nearly the 20th century, those who encountered this scripture would have understood the quickening of John the Baptist in Elizabeths womb to be the first miracle Jesus performed, bringing to life a child who appeared as if he might never gain life. A profoundly grateful Elizabeth, filled with the Spirit, burst out with joyful blessings of Mary, who had brought the Lord to quicken Elizabeths child into life.

Today, this aspect of Elizabeths story in the Gospel of Luke is obscured because we understand pregnancy differently. In the 18th century scientists began serious study of embryology, and by the middle of the 19th century many physicians were convinced that human development was continuous from conception to birth and that therefore quickening was medically meaningless. By the late-19th century the Catholic Church had discarded quickening as a theologically significant marker. Every time I hear the story of Elizabeth in church readings, I hope that the priest will discuss the meaning of quickening in the story, and so far, every time I have been disappointed.

We need to bring back our understanding of quickening. For one thing, it clarifies the original depth and meaning in Elizabeths story, levels of meaning that were shared among scripture readers and listeners until the past century or so. When Luke said that John the Baptist leaped for joy, he was not signifying simple happiness. He intended to signify the joy of life itself. The Catholic Church eventually decided that the significance of Johns leaping was that John was cleansed of original sin. But the miracle described in the text as understood in its original context goes even deeper: It was the first indication that Jesus could raise up the dead, and would offer the gift of eternal life.

Another reason to bring back our understanding of quickening is that it reminds modern readers of an important insight that was a truism in earlier times: Pregnancies are precarious in their early months. Before the modern understanding of embryology, people appreciated quickening as a medically significant indication of a successful pregnancy, and as a spiritually significant indication that it was time to experience oneself as pregnant with a baby and to expect the birth of a child. Today, we have the technology to detect conceptions less than two weeks after they take place. But of those conceptions, about 30 percent miscarry, mostly in the early months of pregnancy. From the point of modern embryology, quickening may be arbitrary, but from the perspective of a person experiencing pregnancy, it can make sense to look to quickening, rather than a positive home pregnancy test, for reassurance that a baby is on the way. And then, at quickening, we can remember Elizabeth, and joyfully appreciate the miracle that is new life.

See the original post:
The Other Miraculous Pregnancy of Advent - Sojourners

by William T. Hathaway / December 14th, 2019

Researchers have determined that the Vedic culture of India was the first global civilization. They have uncovered archeological and historical evidence indicating that the society which began millennia ago in the Indus Valley grew to encompass all of South Asia, then spread peacefully to many parts of the world.

Science and technology in ancient India were highly developed. Some 1,000 years before Aristotle, the Vedic Aryans asserted that the earth is round and circles the sun. 2,000 years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India understood that gravitation holds the solar system together, and therefore the sun, the most massive object, has to be at its center. Our modern numerals 0 through 9 were developed in India. Mathematics existed [in India] long before the Greeks constructed their first right angle. To Hindus is due the invention of algebra and geometry and their application to astronomy. Quadratic equations were first developed in India. For years much of the world has thought that the advancements in mathematics came from the Arab countries, but nothing can be farther from the truth. They only inherited the advanced formulas from the Hindus, wrote about them, and then helped transfer them to Europe through Spain.

1,500 years ago the Indian mathematician Aryabhata wrote treatises on spherical trigonometry and astronomy, asserting that the planets are round and spin on their axes through elliptical orbits. He accurately calculated the size of the earth and the length of the year, the lunar month, and the heliocentric revolutions of Mars and Jupiter. 500 years before Newton and Leibnitz, Indians were using calculus to determine the daily motion of the planets.

Medical practices in ancient India were also far in advance of those in other countries and in many respects rival our current procedures. 2,600 years ago Vedic medical texts recorded complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, hernia, intestinal surgery, bladder stone removal, rhinoplasty or plastic surgery of the nose, and brain surgery, plus suturing, the knowledge of the instruments needed for particular operations, types of forceps, surgical probes, needles, and cutting instruments. Over 125 surgical instruments were described and used, including lancets, forceps, catheters, etc., many of which are the same or similar as those we have today. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics, and immunity is also found in these texts. They describe, 1,700 years before William Harvey, blood circulation and its role in delivering nutrition. They discuss 385 plant-generated, 57 animal-generated, and 64 mineral-generated medicines and how to use them.

5,000 years ago Indians were smelting iron to make tools, more than a thousand years before Europeans. They exported tempered steel to China and Arabia. 3,000 years ago they were producing glass and coloring it with metal salts and exporting optical lenses to China. They excelled in ceramics, fabric dyeing, and cement making.

Will Durant wrote, The growing of cotton appears earlier in India than elsewhere, apparently it was used for cloth in Mohenjodaro. Both the spinning wheel and loom are Indian inventions.

Much of the evidence for these achievements was discovered during excavations of the sites of Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Sir John Marshall, the archeologist who excavated Mohenjodaro, wrote, These discoveries establish the existence during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC of a highly developed city life: and the presence in many of these homes of wells and bathrooms as well as elaborate drainage systems, betokens a social condition of the citizens at least equal to that found in Sumer and superior to that prevailing in contemporary Babylonia and Egypt. It took another 2,000 years for the Roman Empire to reach the level of town planning and sanitation that had already been existing in the Harrapan culture. This Indus civilization was the most populous and largest of any culture of the 3rd millennium, a huge center of many ideas and forms of knowledge that spread in all directions.

5,000 years ago, when the peoples of Europe were hauling stones across the face of the continent and grubbing out a meager existence, Indians were living in elaborately designed cities with sturdy houses, broad, straight roads, public baths, and drainage systems that were hardly equaled until the Roman era three thousand years later. But 5,000 years ago the Indus Valley civilization was already age-old with many millennia of human endeavor behind it. Usually we think of Mesopotamia as the cradle of civilization, but evidence suggests that the society of northwestern India, which has preserved its essential spirit over countless generations, deserves equal billing. This, therefore, was the real cradle of civilization as we know it.

According to Will Durant, India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europes languages she was the mother of our philosophy, mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother, through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.

Mark Twain called India, Cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects. India is the prime source of human development.

Vedic civilization was truly a golden age, fully developed both spiritually and materially. The next article, The Global Culture, describes how this civilization spread around the world.

This article was posted on Saturday, December 14th, 2019 at 12:48am and is filed under Culture, India, Vedic Civilization.

Excerpt from:
The Mother of Us All: Ancient India's Vedic Civilization - Dissident Voice