Catholic church says egg is not a meat. Does that mean a fetus is not a baby?

Question

I never understood that. If the church says you can eat eggs during Lent on Fridays, doesn't that kinda mean that a fetus is not considered a real baby? Like before 2 months of pregnancy? I think that egg is a meat and you should not be able to eat it during Lent on Fridays.

okay I think I get it. thanks

Answer 1

No.

The morality of abortion and discipline of abstaining from meat while allowing the eating of fish, eggs, milk products, condiments made of animal fat, soups flavored with meat, meat gravy, and sauces are completely different things.

If you (or anyone else) do not wish to eat eggs while abstaining from meat then you are free to follow your conscience but the Church as created minimum rules by which we must follow.

Another interesting exceptions are the legends that Church authorities declared species that were not fish but spent a lot of time in the water as fish (and allowable to eat while abstaining from meat) including:
+ Beavers
+ Capybaras
+ Muskrats
+ Sea turtles
+ Iguanas
+ Sea birds

This practice was to enable people to eat more animals on Fridays and on any days during Lent.

Lent was typically at the end of winter when domesticated meat was running low and none of the non-fishy fishes were domesticated.

The needs of the people were more important than emerging scientific definitions.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

You are mixing apples with oranges here.

First, the eggs you buy at a supermarket, to eat, are not fertilized eggs. Therefore, there is no developing form of life inside the egg itself.

If you were to crack open a fertilized egg, with a developing chicken inside, you aren't going to eat it for obvious reasons -so what difference does it make?

Let's say, for the sake of the example, you went ahead and ate the developing chicken inside. Chances are, it has not developed enough to have muscle cells, hence - the meat, so what the Church teaches is true. There is no meat inside a chicken egg, the eggs purchased at the supermarket for consumption. That is why it is okay to eat eggs on Friday's during Lent.

Even if you think otherwise, it doesn't make it true.

The Catholic Church also teaches that a human life begins at conception. From that point on, a human life is existing and developing. It is a human life.

The problem here is that you are equating the phrase "egg is not a meat" with "egg is not a life". This is a recklessly simpled, thus inaccurate way of looking at it.

Answer 3

Science says that when sperm meets egg, a living, genetically complete individual is created. All it needs is time, nourishment, and a safe place to grow, just like the rest of us.

Whether to eat meat, eggs or fish on Fridays during Lent is one of those little rules the Church decides. Abstaining from meat is a way of making a small sacrifice to show your appreciation for Jesus' death on the cross. It has nothing to do with the taking of life. If the Church decided to forbid eating meat, it would be forbidden every day.

Answer 4

Not only is the egg you eat unfertilized, but by the time it has left the chicken's body, it is virtually impossible for the egg to become fertilized. Not so with a fetus, which has already been fertilized and with time will become a newborn baby and eventually a fully-grown human being. No chickens will hatch from your grocery store eggs.

Answer 5

Very well. But also most eggs for consumption are raised in the absence of roosters. Meaning the eggs are unfertilized and not an embryo.

Answer 6

Actually, eggs bought at grocery stores today are not fertilized. And its not the same, that's kind of a stretch.

Answer 7

I use to raise chickens. The kind of eggs you eat are not the same kind that baby chicks come from. The kind you eat are unfertilized.

Answer 8

these rules were m,ade by ignorant fools. science says that egg is protein and comes out of the back of a chicken: it is thereofre meat. It sure aint vegetable or carbohydrate. the same church used to say that barnacle geese came out of barnacles and that the beaver is a fish. all a bunch of hyprocritical nonsense.

Answer 9

No.
Egg is NOT meat since it hasn't developed yet. A feotus IS a baby and IS a meat because it has developed. Like a sperm, sperm is not a meat. I hope you understand what I meant.

Answer 10

A chicken egg is not fertilized when you eat it.