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The prohibitions and subsequent relaxation of the prohibitions do not change the theological fact that killing a human embyro is a sin. Why? Because it says that killing before the infusion of the spiritual soul was not a crime. Because if there is no soul, there is no human person. So if anything, the science was not yet up to the point, but the theology was. Now we have the means of seeing that at the instant of conception there is a radical change, in which the the individual cells of the parents stop being individual but rather something new, with its own dynamism. But this article really affirms things without some key citations.
This page needs to either
As Choster says, "many religions believe in souls", but the terminology, concepts and beliefs are different. I think it would help to compare and contrast the religious beliefs if there was a separate article on Ensoulment (Christianity) (as there was in the past) which linked to the nearest equivalent in other religions.-- Nathan Cole 12:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
This article appears to represent only the Christian / Catholic point of view. All of the cited links are from the Bible, Biblical sites, or the Roman Catholic church.
The following article, which I have not validated, shows different ideas of the time of ensoulment among different religions: [1]. I will try to find evidence for my at this point completely unverified understanding that earlier in time, when child mortality was high, even the Catholic Church taught that ensoulment happened some days after birth.
In any case, the single-religion POV presented here makes me challenge the objectivity of this article.
Peter 14:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Since identical twins form after conception, do they only have half a soul each? Atomic Wedgie 03:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
-- 94.37.172.194 ( talk) 21:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Presently, the Wiki entry states, "the Church teaches that ensoulment is at conception. This is taught as an article of dogma which is required belief by all its members." There is no source for this, and from what I know, it is simply false!! The 2003 New Catholic Encyclopedia has an entry ("Soul, origin of") which says, regarding "Time of Infusion," that "Exactly when this happens is more controversial, and still an open question with scholastic philosophers of high standing on both sides" (p 356). The NCE entry continues by pointing out that the CDF's Donum Vitae [2] states, "The Magisterium has not expressly committed its authority to an affirmation of a philosophical nature" (I.1). The CDF would not withhold its affirmation on a matter which is, as the Wiki entry claims, "an article of dogma."
Furthermore, the Wiki entry states "The Roman Catholic Church has maintained as part of its dogma the writings of the early Church father, Tertullian (160–220 CE), who wrote..." This is nonsensical. "Tertullian" is "part of the [the Church's] dogma"?? A dogma is a solemnly defined and obligatory teaching, but as far as I know neither "Tertullian" (this is nonsensical), nor the entirety of his writings, are considered dogma. Sure, Tertullian's statement about ensoulment provides an early testimony to the predominant Catholic belief that this begins at conception, but to claim that this statement is somehow dogma? This whole part needs to be rewritten by someone who knows what "dogma" is.
According to the NCE, the present situation stands as follows: the CDF has put its weight on the position that ensoulment, and thus personhood, begin at conception, but it has not taught this. The majority view (which grew with the advent of the human genome) among Catholic theologians tends toward the moment of conception, but this is not a settled matter, and certainly not a dogma. Bpeters1 ( talk) 19:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
There ought to be an article on the declaration Dignitas Personae in order to better explain how the Church views living embryos. ADM ( talk) 05:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
The philosophical position taken in Dignitatis Personae on the question of the value of a human being is found in ¶ 5:
Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.
Unfortunately, as a philosophical argument, this reasoning is circular. It is true that one cannot posit a change in value if the human being possesses full anthropological and ethical status from the moment of conception, but this if is the very conclusion desired, albeit expressed in different terms. It begs justification.
In any case, this paragraph makes no pretense to declaring a matter of settled dogma. The very reason the argument is couched in philosophical terms is because it is not a matter of settled dogma and the CDF recognizes the need to provide a justification for the main conclusion.
I make no suggestion here that there is no basis for a dogmatic declaration in favor of ensoulment at conception, nor do I believe there is no philosophical justification for this eminently desirable conclusion. On the contrary, I believe the scriptures cited are at least highly suggestive of the conclusion and I also believe that a legitimate philosophical argument, based in natural theology, is possible. [[[User:Lgearhart|Fr. Larry]] ( talk) 19:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I believe this article violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy and is written in a way that is unsalvageable at this point. I recommend the placing a speedy deletion tag if this article falls under that policy.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I am removing everything that makes an unsourced claim, all peacock terms and weasel words.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I editied out absolutely everything that did not have any relevence to the subject. After the OR, POV and unrelated Abortion information was removed....we are left with a simple stub. Let's keep this article encyclopedic please. Thanks-- Amadscientist ( talk) 05:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Your quick! I was explaining the last part and when I hit there was an edit conflict. So let me look where we are in the discussion and reply.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 19:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
What I meant was, that in articles about controversies, it is not necessary to state that "Some people believe one thing and others believe another", when that is a given by the nature of the prose. In other words, don't comment on the facts. It becomes a narrative which is essayish and unencyclopedic. I will comment about your other question below.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 20:03, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
This article used to have a lot more useful content in it. It looks like most of it was deleted by "Amadscientist", trying to bias the article. Please ban them from editing and restore the content. Quote from Augustine was removed, quotes from the Bible were removed, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.226 ( talk) 02:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I have removed a large chunk of text added twice by an anonymous editor. I believe the anonymous editor can probably contribute a lot to this article, but I want to encourage the editor to work within out guidelines, and attempt to write an encyclopedia article. A long list of what early Church Fathers had to say about abortion is not encyclopedic. That content can be condenses and summarized, and key quotes can be used, but this isn't WikiQuote, and such large blocks of quotes breaks up the flow of text and isn't within out style guidelines (in addition to having basic formatting errors and looking terrible on screen). Also, keep in mind that we generally cannot cite primary sources like ancient texts directly, but need to cite scholars discussing those sources. So instead of citing a Church Father directly and claiming that passage relates to ensoulment, we need to find scholars making those claims to avoid original interpretation of ancient texts and such. I really do believe anon can contribute, and I want to encourage them to keep working, but please consider Wikipedia's mission of being an encyclopedia, read up on our rules and style guide, and consider how you can contribute. I'd be glad to help where I can if you have questions. - Andrew c [talk] 15:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Here's the content on Judaism that I removed from the article:
The Talmud, in chapter 11 of the tractate Sanhedrin, records a purported conversation in which the Stoic Marcus Aurelius convinced Judah the Prince that the soul comes into the body at conception.
http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/Forum/abortion/background/judaism1.html#IV
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Bioethics/Abortion/Fetus_in_Jewish_Law/Soul.shtml
The inclusion of only the extreme minority view (ie. that in Judaism, the soul enters at conception) raises WP:NPOV concerns. I suggest that users wishing to include information on Judaism draft, on the talkpage perhaps, a section that gives due weight to views as represented in reliable sources. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 22:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, I can't decide whether to be annoyed or amused at the remark that I'm unfamiliar with the Talmud. Only someone to whom Jewish tradition is completely alien could suggest that the Talmud is a unified document representing a monolithic Jewish view. Secondly, sources (note that there are some pages I can't view online, so I hope that if you can see them, you'll tell me in the unlikely case that they say something radically different):
There's more of Schiff, and there are plenty of other sources that I found when I did my own search, but it really isn't worth going on because this more than demonstrates that what you wrote was completely undue. See how different everything is when you don't cherrypick pages and sources to suit your own personal opinions? – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 01:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I will for now refrain from making further edits to this article. I will only leave an indication of my disagreement with the systematic removal of sourced information about the Jewish view that wasting seed is considered in the Talmud to be equivalent to murder, and about the explanation that the Talmud's judgement on it as punishable by death "was not out of a radical puritanism in the Jewish religion. The punishment was simply a particular response to the universal problem, as inevitable as it is insoluble, of establishing the precise moment when life begins. If we can turn abortion into murder by declaring that an embryo is alive, and then if we push that originating instant back a few hours and declare that the sperm is alive, any waste of sperm becomes homicide." Esoglou ( talk) 19:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
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Relation to citation 21 ( Stem cells, human embryos and ethics: interdisciplinary perspectives: Lars Østnor, Springer 2008), the text in the book (at page 105) is: "Augustine presaged the predominant view when he argued that an unformed fetus had no soul and no sentience (Noonan 1970:15–16). His view was accepted by Thomas Aquinas and by most theologians through at least the 18th century (Noonan 1970:34–36)." confirming what the editor of this part of the article has written. Greetings, Ricardo Ferreira de Oliveira ( talk) 14:09, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Is the CCC an official documentation of Church teaching? One source claims that life at conception is not offficial is there other sources to back this up? Thoughts? Manabimasu ( talk) 01:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
This is not clear as to what is meant. Please rewrite, and add clear, universal, English punctuation: "In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development." Misty MH ( talk) 18:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
I have just flipped through Aristotle's On The Generation of Animals and it doesn't have anything that mentions the soul enters the foetus around 40 days, as per the claim of quickening in this article. Neither is this mentioned in On The Soul, which reference 7 in the article maintains is the case.
This article has the following claim on Aristotle
"Aristotle believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became "animated" with a human soul by "ensoulment". For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses
, the stage at which, it was held, movement is first felt within the womb and pregnancy was certain. This is called epigenesis,"
There is no mention of the term epigenesis in either Aristotle's On The Soul and On The Generation Of Animals.
I also flipped through Aristotle's On The Soul, and no mention of the 40 day entre of the soul into the foetus.
Perhaps, it is in another work of Aristotle's.
I did find the following:
On the generation of animals by Aristotle p32 Part 23 "For at first all such embryo seem to live the life of a plant. And it is clear that we must be guided by this i speaking of the sensitive and the rational soul. For all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive, must be possessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality. Ant it is necessary either (1) that they should all come into being in the embryo without existing previsouly outside it, or (2) that they should exist previously . or (3) that some should so exist and others not". ... embryo and semen have soul in potentiality but not actually. (p33) part 23 Endo999 ( talk) 05:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
I have consulted the Stanford University philosophy website. It says about Aristotle
Aristotelians followed Aristotle and without much further study of embryos interpreted development, including human development, as gradual and epigenetic. Tradtional Catholicism agreed. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas both held that hominization, or the coming into being of the human, occurs only gradually. Quickening was thought to occur around 40 days, and to be the point at which the merely animal mix of material fluids was ensouled. Until 1859, when Pope Pius IX decreed that life begins at “conception,” the Church was epigenetic along with the Aristotelians [see Maienschein 2003]. [3]
Thus the article does not say that Aristotle himself developed the theory of Quickening (that the soul enters the foetus after 40 days) but that Augustine and Aquinas named the date as 40 days. However, in the article it is claimed that Aristotle gave the date as 40 days, which is false.
Endo999 ( talk) 05:34, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
References
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The prohibitions and subsequent relaxation of the prohibitions do not change the theological fact that killing a human embyro is a sin. Why? Because it says that killing before the infusion of the spiritual soul was not a crime. Because if there is no soul, there is no human person. So if anything, the science was not yet up to the point, but the theology was. Now we have the means of seeing that at the instant of conception there is a radical change, in which the the individual cells of the parents stop being individual but rather something new, with its own dynamism. But this article really affirms things without some key citations.
This page needs to either
As Choster says, "many religions believe in souls", but the terminology, concepts and beliefs are different. I think it would help to compare and contrast the religious beliefs if there was a separate article on Ensoulment (Christianity) (as there was in the past) which linked to the nearest equivalent in other religions.-- Nathan Cole 12:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
This article appears to represent only the Christian / Catholic point of view. All of the cited links are from the Bible, Biblical sites, or the Roman Catholic church.
The following article, which I have not validated, shows different ideas of the time of ensoulment among different religions: [1]. I will try to find evidence for my at this point completely unverified understanding that earlier in time, when child mortality was high, even the Catholic Church taught that ensoulment happened some days after birth.
In any case, the single-religion POV presented here makes me challenge the objectivity of this article.
Peter 14:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Since identical twins form after conception, do they only have half a soul each? Atomic Wedgie 03:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
-- 94.37.172.194 ( talk) 21:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Presently, the Wiki entry states, "the Church teaches that ensoulment is at conception. This is taught as an article of dogma which is required belief by all its members." There is no source for this, and from what I know, it is simply false!! The 2003 New Catholic Encyclopedia has an entry ("Soul, origin of") which says, regarding "Time of Infusion," that "Exactly when this happens is more controversial, and still an open question with scholastic philosophers of high standing on both sides" (p 356). The NCE entry continues by pointing out that the CDF's Donum Vitae [2] states, "The Magisterium has not expressly committed its authority to an affirmation of a philosophical nature" (I.1). The CDF would not withhold its affirmation on a matter which is, as the Wiki entry claims, "an article of dogma."
Furthermore, the Wiki entry states "The Roman Catholic Church has maintained as part of its dogma the writings of the early Church father, Tertullian (160–220 CE), who wrote..." This is nonsensical. "Tertullian" is "part of the [the Church's] dogma"?? A dogma is a solemnly defined and obligatory teaching, but as far as I know neither "Tertullian" (this is nonsensical), nor the entirety of his writings, are considered dogma. Sure, Tertullian's statement about ensoulment provides an early testimony to the predominant Catholic belief that this begins at conception, but to claim that this statement is somehow dogma? This whole part needs to be rewritten by someone who knows what "dogma" is.
According to the NCE, the present situation stands as follows: the CDF has put its weight on the position that ensoulment, and thus personhood, begin at conception, but it has not taught this. The majority view (which grew with the advent of the human genome) among Catholic theologians tends toward the moment of conception, but this is not a settled matter, and certainly not a dogma. Bpeters1 ( talk) 19:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
There ought to be an article on the declaration Dignitas Personae in order to better explain how the Church views living embryos. ADM ( talk) 05:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
The philosophical position taken in Dignitatis Personae on the question of the value of a human being is found in ¶ 5:
Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.
Unfortunately, as a philosophical argument, this reasoning is circular. It is true that one cannot posit a change in value if the human being possesses full anthropological and ethical status from the moment of conception, but this if is the very conclusion desired, albeit expressed in different terms. It begs justification.
In any case, this paragraph makes no pretense to declaring a matter of settled dogma. The very reason the argument is couched in philosophical terms is because it is not a matter of settled dogma and the CDF recognizes the need to provide a justification for the main conclusion.
I make no suggestion here that there is no basis for a dogmatic declaration in favor of ensoulment at conception, nor do I believe there is no philosophical justification for this eminently desirable conclusion. On the contrary, I believe the scriptures cited are at least highly suggestive of the conclusion and I also believe that a legitimate philosophical argument, based in natural theology, is possible. [[[User:Lgearhart|Fr. Larry]] ( talk) 19:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I believe this article violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy and is written in a way that is unsalvageable at this point. I recommend the placing a speedy deletion tag if this article falls under that policy.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I am removing everything that makes an unsourced claim, all peacock terms and weasel words.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I editied out absolutely everything that did not have any relevence to the subject. After the OR, POV and unrelated Abortion information was removed....we are left with a simple stub. Let's keep this article encyclopedic please. Thanks-- Amadscientist ( talk) 05:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Your quick! I was explaining the last part and when I hit there was an edit conflict. So let me look where we are in the discussion and reply.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 19:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
What I meant was, that in articles about controversies, it is not necessary to state that "Some people believe one thing and others believe another", when that is a given by the nature of the prose. In other words, don't comment on the facts. It becomes a narrative which is essayish and unencyclopedic. I will comment about your other question below.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 20:03, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
This article used to have a lot more useful content in it. It looks like most of it was deleted by "Amadscientist", trying to bias the article. Please ban them from editing and restore the content. Quote from Augustine was removed, quotes from the Bible were removed, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.226 ( talk) 02:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I have removed a large chunk of text added twice by an anonymous editor. I believe the anonymous editor can probably contribute a lot to this article, but I want to encourage the editor to work within out guidelines, and attempt to write an encyclopedia article. A long list of what early Church Fathers had to say about abortion is not encyclopedic. That content can be condenses and summarized, and key quotes can be used, but this isn't WikiQuote, and such large blocks of quotes breaks up the flow of text and isn't within out style guidelines (in addition to having basic formatting errors and looking terrible on screen). Also, keep in mind that we generally cannot cite primary sources like ancient texts directly, but need to cite scholars discussing those sources. So instead of citing a Church Father directly and claiming that passage relates to ensoulment, we need to find scholars making those claims to avoid original interpretation of ancient texts and such. I really do believe anon can contribute, and I want to encourage them to keep working, but please consider Wikipedia's mission of being an encyclopedia, read up on our rules and style guide, and consider how you can contribute. I'd be glad to help where I can if you have questions. - Andrew c [talk] 15:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Here's the content on Judaism that I removed from the article:
The Talmud, in chapter 11 of the tractate Sanhedrin, records a purported conversation in which the Stoic Marcus Aurelius convinced Judah the Prince that the soul comes into the body at conception.
http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/Forum/abortion/background/judaism1.html#IV
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Bioethics/Abortion/Fetus_in_Jewish_Law/Soul.shtml
The inclusion of only the extreme minority view (ie. that in Judaism, the soul enters at conception) raises WP:NPOV concerns. I suggest that users wishing to include information on Judaism draft, on the talkpage perhaps, a section that gives due weight to views as represented in reliable sources. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 22:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, I can't decide whether to be annoyed or amused at the remark that I'm unfamiliar with the Talmud. Only someone to whom Jewish tradition is completely alien could suggest that the Talmud is a unified document representing a monolithic Jewish view. Secondly, sources (note that there are some pages I can't view online, so I hope that if you can see them, you'll tell me in the unlikely case that they say something radically different):
There's more of Schiff, and there are plenty of other sources that I found when I did my own search, but it really isn't worth going on because this more than demonstrates that what you wrote was completely undue. See how different everything is when you don't cherrypick pages and sources to suit your own personal opinions? – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 01:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I will for now refrain from making further edits to this article. I will only leave an indication of my disagreement with the systematic removal of sourced information about the Jewish view that wasting seed is considered in the Talmud to be equivalent to murder, and about the explanation that the Talmud's judgement on it as punishable by death "was not out of a radical puritanism in the Jewish religion. The punishment was simply a particular response to the universal problem, as inevitable as it is insoluble, of establishing the precise moment when life begins. If we can turn abortion into murder by declaring that an embryo is alive, and then if we push that originating instant back a few hours and declare that the sperm is alive, any waste of sperm becomes homicide." Esoglou ( talk) 19:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
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Relation to citation 21 ( Stem cells, human embryos and ethics: interdisciplinary perspectives: Lars Østnor, Springer 2008), the text in the book (at page 105) is: "Augustine presaged the predominant view when he argued that an unformed fetus had no soul and no sentience (Noonan 1970:15–16). His view was accepted by Thomas Aquinas and by most theologians through at least the 18th century (Noonan 1970:34–36)." confirming what the editor of this part of the article has written. Greetings, Ricardo Ferreira de Oliveira ( talk) 14:09, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Is the CCC an official documentation of Church teaching? One source claims that life at conception is not offficial is there other sources to back this up? Thoughts? Manabimasu ( talk) 01:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
This is not clear as to what is meant. Please rewrite, and add clear, universal, English punctuation: "In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development." Misty MH ( talk) 18:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
I have just flipped through Aristotle's On The Generation of Animals and it doesn't have anything that mentions the soul enters the foetus around 40 days, as per the claim of quickening in this article. Neither is this mentioned in On The Soul, which reference 7 in the article maintains is the case.
This article has the following claim on Aristotle
"Aristotle believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became "animated" with a human soul by "ensoulment". For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses
, the stage at which, it was held, movement is first felt within the womb and pregnancy was certain. This is called epigenesis,"
There is no mention of the term epigenesis in either Aristotle's On The Soul and On The Generation Of Animals.
I also flipped through Aristotle's On The Soul, and no mention of the 40 day entre of the soul into the foetus.
Perhaps, it is in another work of Aristotle's.
I did find the following:
On the generation of animals by Aristotle p32 Part 23 "For at first all such embryo seem to live the life of a plant. And it is clear that we must be guided by this i speaking of the sensitive and the rational soul. For all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive, must be possessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality. Ant it is necessary either (1) that they should all come into being in the embryo without existing previsouly outside it, or (2) that they should exist previously . or (3) that some should so exist and others not". ... embryo and semen have soul in potentiality but not actually. (p33) part 23 Endo999 ( talk) 05:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
I have consulted the Stanford University philosophy website. It says about Aristotle
Aristotelians followed Aristotle and without much further study of embryos interpreted development, including human development, as gradual and epigenetic. Tradtional Catholicism agreed. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas both held that hominization, or the coming into being of the human, occurs only gradually. Quickening was thought to occur around 40 days, and to be the point at which the merely animal mix of material fluids was ensouled. Until 1859, when Pope Pius IX decreed that life begins at “conception,” the Church was epigenetic along with the Aristotelians [see Maienschein 2003]. [3]
Thus the article does not say that Aristotle himself developed the theory of Quickening (that the soul enters the foetus after 40 days) but that Augustine and Aquinas named the date as 40 days. However, in the article it is claimed that Aristotle gave the date as 40 days, which is false.
Endo999 ( talk) 05:34, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
References