Granted, but weve already been over this. From what basis do you assert that valuing our lives to the point of defending it against a threatening agent is contrary to the will of God if the only means of defense is terminating the threatening agent?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm
Intentional abortions are distinguished by
medical writers into two classes.
- When they are brought about for social reasons, they are called criminal abortions; and they are rightly condemned under any circumstances whatsoever. "Often, very often," said Dr. Hodge, of the University of Pennsylvania, "must all the eloquence and all the authority of the practitioner be employed; often he must, as it were, grasp the conscience of his weak and erring patient, and let her know, in language not to be misunderstood, that she is responsible to the Creator for the life of the being within her" (Wharton and Stille's Med. Jurispr., Vol. on Abortion, 11).
- The name of obstetrical abortion is given by physicians to such as is performed to save the life of the mother. Whether this practice is ever morally lawful we shall consider below.
It is evident that the determination of what is right or wrong in human conduct belongs to the
science of
ethics and the teaching of religious authority. Both of these declare the
Divine law, "Thou shalt not kill". The embryonic child, as seen above, has a human
soul; and therefore is a man from the
time of its conception; therefore it has an equal
right to its
life with its mother; therefore neither the mother, nor
medical practitioner, nor any human being whatever can lawfully take that
life away. The State cannot give such
right to the physician; for it has not itself the
right to put an innocent
person to death. No matter how desirable it might seem to be at times to save the
life of the mother,
common sense teaches and all nations accept the maxim, that "evil is never to be done that good may come of it"; or, which is the same thing, that "a good end cannot justify a bad means". Now it is an
evil means to destroy the
life of an innocent child. The plea cannot be made that the child is an
unjust aggressor. It is simply where
nature and its own
parents have put it. Therefore,
Natural Law forbids any attempt at destroying fetal
life. The teachings of the
Catholic Church admit of no
doubt on the subject. Such
moral questions, when they are submitted, are decided by the Tribunal of the Holy Office. Now this authority
decreed, 28 May, 1884, and again, 18 August, 1889, that "it cannot be safely taught in
Catholic schools that it is lawful to perform . . . any surgical operation which is directly destructive of the
life of the fetus or the mother." Abortion was condemned by name, 24 July, 1895, in answer to the question whether when the mother is in immediate danger of death and there is no other means of saving her
life, a physician can with a safe
conscience cause abortion not by destroying the child in the womb (which was explicitly condemned in the former
decree), but by giving it a chance to be born alive, though not being yet viable, it would soon expire. The answer was that he cannot. After these and other similar decisions had been given, some
moralists thought they saw reasons to
doubt whether an exception might not be allowed in the case of ectopic gestations. Therefore the question was submitted: "Is it ever allowed to extract from the body of the mother ectopic embryos still immature, before the sixth month after conception is completed?" The answer given, 20 March, 1902, was: "No; according to the
decree of 4 May, 1898; according to which, as far as possible, earnest and opportune provision is to be made to safeguard the
life of the child and of the mother. As to the
time, let the questioner
remember that no acceleration of birth is licit unless it be done at a
time, and in ways in which, according to the usual course of things, the
life of the mother and the child be provided for".
Ethics, then, and the
Church agree in teaching that no action is lawful which directly destroys fetal
life. It is also clear that extracting the living fetus before it is viable, is destroying its
life as directly as it would be killing a grown
man directly to plunge him into a medium in which he cannot live, and hold him there till he expires.
However, if
medical treatment or surgical operation,
necessary to save a mother's
life, is applied to her organism (though the child's death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal
life is thereby directly attacked.
Moralists agree that we are not always prohibited from doing what is lawful in itself, though
evil consequences may follow which we do not desire. The good effects of our acts are then directly intended, and the regretted
evil consequences are reluctantly permitted to follow because we cannot avoid them. The
evil thus permitted is said to be indirectly intended. It is not imputed to us provided four
conditions are verified, namely:
- That we do not wish the evil effects, but make all reasonable efforts to avoid them;
- That the immediate effect be good in itself;
- That the evil is not made a means to obtain the good effect; for this would be to do evil that good might come of it -- a procedure never allowed;
- That the good effect be as important at least as the evil effect.
All four
conditions may be verified in treating or operating on a
woman with child. The death of the child is not intended, and every reasonable precaution is taken to save its
life; the immediate effect intended, the mother's
life, is good -- no harm is done to the child in order to save the mother -- the saving of the mother's
life is in itself as good as the saving of the child's
life. Of course provision must be made for the child's spiritual as well as for its physical
life, and if by the treatment or operation in question the child were to be deprived of
Baptism, which it could receive if the operation were not performed, then the
evil would be greater than the good consequences of the operation. In this case the operation could not lawfully be performed. Whenever it is possible to
baptize an embryonic child before it expires,
Christian charity requires that it be done, either before or after delivery; and it may be done by any one, even though he be not a
Christian.
