In paragraph seventh he decrees that any one, man or woman, cleric or lay, who procures abortion by counsel, favor, drinks, letters of advice, signs, or in any way whatever, are _ipso facto_ excommunicated, and the excommunication is reserved to the Pope himself. Gregory XIV., in the constitution _Sedes Apostolica_, May 31, 1591, gave to priests who have special faculties for the purpose from the bishop, permission to absolve from this excommunication, but only _in foro conscientiae_. Sixtus V. and Gregory XIV. used the term _foetus animatus_, in keeping with the old Aristotelian notion of animation. Pius IX., in the constitution _Apostolicae Sedis Moderationi_, deleted the epithet _animatus_, and extended the excommunication to all abortions, no matter at what time of the gestation they occur. He ordered that only the actual physical abortionist is to be excommunicated, not those who counsel the crime. Some moralists hold that those who order abortion are direct abortionists and fall under this excommunication; other moralists oppose this opinion. Pius IX.[94] excommunicates procurators of abortion if actual abortion is effected, and this excommunication is reserved to the bishops, not to the Pope. [94] Sect, iii, cap. ii. In this decree occur the words "_Procurantes abortum, effectu_ _secuto_," and there has been considerable discussion of the question who are the _procurantes_, the agents who fall under the excommunication? Again, are craniotomy, cephalotrypsis, decapitation, embryotomy, and exenteration, when performed on the living child, abortions in the sense of the decree, and thus matter of the excommunication? Those who do abortion are the principal agents who _physically_, immediately, of themselves, in their own name, or who _morally_, through others, perform an abortion. The common opinion of moralists is that all those who of themselves or through others bring on an abortion are excommunicated, but that assistants, although guilty of crime, are not excommunicated. Many eminent moralists are of the opinion that the mother herself who seeks an abortion does not fall under the excommunication because Sixtus V. does not explicitly mention her in this penal law, and a penal law is to be interpreted literally. If a pregnant woman goes to an abortionist and persuades him by speech and pay to do an abortion, she is the direct moral cause of that abortion. If it were not for her, the abortion would not take place. Virtually all abortions done on married women are effected morally by the woman herself. In my opinion, and the new canon law states this explicitly, the woman who procures an abortion on herself or on another woman is excommunicated.