NML

• Sanctity of Life

  all life is sacred

  before i formed you in your mothers womb i knew you
• Aquinas held that a human person with a rational soul is present at around 60–80 days after conception.
• “He that strikes a woman with child does something unlawful: wherefore if there results the death either of the woman or of the animated foetus, he will not be excused from homicide, especially seeing that death is the natural result of such a blow.”
• Abortion fails all five primary precepts
• The Catholic Church reinforces the approach of natural moral law by forbidding abortion at any stage and for any reason except indirectly, through the principle of double effect.
• For example, if a woman’s life is endangered by pregnancy, an abortion is not allowed because it violates the means-end condition: it uses a bad means (killing the foetus) to achieve the good end of saving one’s life.
• If the woman’s uterus happens to be cancerous, then she may have a hysterectomy in order to save her life, even if this results in the death of the foetus.

  • Removing a cancerous uterus is morally good, and the death of the foetus is the unintended side-effect of the hysterectomy.
  • The death of the foetus is not the means of saving the woman’s life, the hysterectomy is.
  • Finally, saving the life is at least as good as saving the foetus. This satisfies the four conditions of double effect.