Anscombe was also a critically discerning apologist for the Catholic positions on abortion, sexuality, euthanasia, and the traditional theoretical notion of "double effect"--the claim that an act is morally acceptable if it is intended for its good effect, even though it also has an unintended, though foreseen, bad effect. Applying her analytic skills to natural theology, she defended St. Anselm's "ontological argument" for the existence of God against Immanuel Kant's and Bertrand Russell's well-known objections.
Born on 18 March 1919 in Limerick, Ireland, to Alan Wells Anscombe, a British army officer who later became master of sciences at Dulwich College, and Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe was their only daughter; she had two older brothers. She excelled academically at the Sydenham secondary school and in 1937 was awarded a scholarship to St. Hugh's College of the University of Oxford. There she took what is often regarded as Oxford's most rigorous course of study, the Literae Humaniores or "Greats," which involves the study of Greek and Latin literature, Greco-Roman history, and ancient and modern philosophy. She converted to Catholicism during her first year at Oxford. In 1938 she met Peter T.
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