Section — Konings, Theologia Moralis
§ II. On the procurement of abortion
Abortion is the lethal expulsion of the ovum, embryo, or fetus from the maternal womb. Mar.
- Principles. - I. It is never licit directly to procure abortion, even if the fetus were supposed to be still inanimate; which supposition today, especially now that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the B. V. M. has been proclaimed, lacks foundation.5 The reason is that if the fetus is animated, it is homicide properly so called; but if it is not animated, it is anticipated homicide. For the fetus even not animated is ordered to forming a man; therefore its ejection is anticipated homicide. St. Alphonsus,1 Lacroix.2
II. Sometimes it is licit indirectly to procure abortion, or better, to permit it, namely by administering to a mother laboring under grave disease remedies harmful to the fetus, if the following conditions concur, namely 1° that there is question of a lethal disease; 2° that the remedies harmful to the fetus are directed of themselves to curing the disease; 3° that there is no hope of procuring for the fetus eternal life through Baptism. But hope of this sort can be absent in a twofold case: namely in the earlier days of conception; or where it is morally certain that the fetus, when the mother dies, will die at the same time or before. - St. Alphonsus,3 Lacroix,4 Billuart.
III. It is licit to give to a pregnant woman who is ill remedies suitable for curing diseases, even if sometimes abortion could follow. The reason is that it is clear from experience that abortion very rarely follows from ordinary remedies, at least most of them. - Thus commonly.
Notes to n. 474. (2) L. IV. 393. (3) L. IV. 393. (4) L. IV. 393. (5) Revue des sciences ecclés. T. XXI. p. 5, sq.
- Questions. - Quaer. 1° Is embryotomy, or the killing of an infant in the mother's womb, ever licit?
Resp. 1° It is certainly illicit, if either by a Caesarean operation, of which in the Treatise on Baptism, one can certainly consult the life of the infant and probably also of the mother, or if the fetus is soon to perish, and, its natural death having been awaited and it then extracted, some hope still probably remains of saving the mother. For where the good effect can be had from a certainly licit cause, it is illicit to use a cause concerning the liceity of which at least there is doubt.
Resp. 2° Since embryotomy is an action of itself or directly killing, but the direct killing of an innocent is licit in no case ever, embryotomy, although the sole remedy remains by which the life of the mother can certainly be provided for, cannot be permitted. And this is the common sentence of Theologians. Cf., if you please, Acta5 and Revue des sciences ecclés.6
Quaer. 2° Is at least the so-called medical abortion ever licit, or the acceleration of birth before the completed 28th week of gestation induced by art?
Resp. It is controverted. There are those to whom it seems the direct killing of an innocent, because from the very acceleration of birth before the seventh month of gestation the death of the fetus ought to follow of itself; for before that time it cannot live outside the mother's womb; therefore to extract it from that womb is the same as positively depriving it of precisely that thing without which it cannot live. Those who think the contrary say that in this case the fetus is only removed from a place in which it cannot live longer, and is placed in another in which it cannot continue life for long; wherefore they permit that acceleration of birth if the conditions are present of which in n. 474. II. Adhering to the former with Capellmann,1 we apply the following admonition of Kenrick concerning embryotomy also to the acceleration of birth. If the mother asks what is to be done by her, it seems one must say that she ought to beg the surgeon to consult the life of the fetus in every way that he can.2 (a) p. 469.
Notes to n. 475. (1) L. IV. 394. (2) L. III. P. I. 823. (3) L. IV. 394. (4) L. III. P. I. n. 826. sq. (5) Vol. VII. p. 285. 460. 516. (6) T. XXV. p. 563; XXVI. p. 194 and 208; XXVIII. pp. 247. 364. Appendix annotation (α), to n. 475. q. 1°. R. 2°. p. 210. col. 2. and q. 2° p. 211. col. 1. If the mother must not be killed, as St. Thomas teaches,(1) in order that the child may be saved, neither must the child be killed in order that the mother may be saved; and the intention of saving the mother, however much it may be considered principal and predominant, does not prevent the procurement of abortion from being direct, and willed in itself. Nor can those procuring abortion be excused from sin on the ground that they only hasten the death of offspring otherwise certainly about to die; for a direct hastening or anticipation of death, and willed in itself, not I say on account of itself, is true homicide. - For the same reason that is not lawful even on account of conferring Baptism upon offspring which otherwise would not be baptized. And in truth, St. Thomas(2) says that the mother is not to be killed so that the child may be baptized. But although St. Alphonsus(3) says that "it is lawful to baptize with cold water a child soon about to die, if no other can be had, even if it were feared that death would be hastened from this," he permits this only because "such an action does not tend to killing, but to washing," and a just cause is present; but at the same time he warns that "it is never lawful to throw an infant into a river in order to baptize him" (which baptism nevertheless is probably valid), "although he is soon about to die without Baptism; because it is never lawful, for any cause whatever, directly to kill an innocent." Therefore he kills the infant as directly who directly procures abortion as he who throws him into the river. Nor is it lawful to equate an animated fetus, endowed with its own life, with an unjust aggressor; for one who from the sole course of natural things, for example a man infected with plague, becomes the cause of death to another, cannot be held as an aggressor, either formally or materially unjust. - Nor can he be compared with an innocent who is killed together with an unjust aggressor, because: 1° a dangerous or death-bringing delivery will never rightly be called an unjust aggressor of the mother; 2° it is never lawful to assume the death of an innocent as a means for killing an enemy; but in the case, abortion or the killing of the infant is assumed as a means for freeing the mother from dangerous childbirth. - Finally, from the fact that a mother in shipwreck is not held to sustain a child above the waters with peril of her own life, it would not rightly be concluded that she can provide for her own safety by abortion; for the preservation of another's life by means or positive action, such as sustaining a child above the waters, pertains to the affirmative precept of charity, which does not oblige always nor with grave harm; but the prohibition of abortion pertains to the negative precept of not killing, which never does not oblige. And indeed the mother by abortion not only does not retain, or ceases to retain, the infant within the womb, but rather casts him outside the womb; and in like manner, in the example adduced, although she is not held to sustain the child, she is entirely held, even if she must perish, not to immerse him. Thus rightly Dumas.(1)
- You will resolve. - 1° It is licit to expel a dead fetus, because the expulsion is no longer lethal. - Likewise, in the very violent oppression it will be licit to impede conception, yet not to expel a fetus actually already conceived.3 (b) p. 430.
2° It is not licit for a pregnant girl to take medicines (although these are generally taken in vain) for expelling the fetus, lest she lose reputation, because abortion would be directly intended. This is also clear from proposition 34 condemned by Innocent XI, p. XVI.
3° It is licit for a physician to furnish a remedy of itself ordered to curing the disease of the mother, if it is certain that, the remedy not being given, both the mother otherwise will die, and the fetus will be extinguished without Baptism; for thus both the mother and the fetus are helped in the better way in which they can be helped; but most rarely will there be certainty concerning both. But if the danger of abortion is equal, whether the remedy be taken or not, it is licit to apply it; because without greater danger to the offspring the life of the mother is consulted. - But if the danger becomes greater from the medicine, certainly one must proceed cautiously, since it is not lawful, in order to protect temporal life, positively to expose one's neighbor to the danger of eternal death. Yet it must be noted that, in order that this prohibition urge, there ought to be present a reasonable hope of saving the life of the offspring after the death of the mother, not indeed that a slight and most remote hope suffice; but most rarely does the offspring survive the pregnant mother. Hence the physician should weigh the circumstances conscientiously, yet not scrupulously.1
4° They are homicides who strike a pregnant woman, or terrify her, so that abortion follows. Likewise pregnant women who with grave imprudence in various ways posit a proximate cause of abortion, for example by giving attention to excessive labors, by carrying heavy burdens. In both cases foresight of the danger is required.
5° A fortiori those girls are guilty of homicide who, pregnant from fornication, apply repeated attempts to try for abortion, by potions, jumps, burdens, strong striking and compression of the belly, etc. ... When women of this sort confess, they are to be questioned about abortion desired or attempted carefully, but not abruptly.
Notes to n. 476 - note sequence 1. (1) De occ. foet. p. 73 sq. (2) Tr. III. 130. (3) L. IV. 394. Quaer. I. toward the end. Notes to n. 476 - note sequence 2. (1) L. IV. 394. Appendix annotation (Φ), to n. 476. 1°. p. 211. col. 1. "In doubt whether the fetus lives, it must be presumed by the physician to live, no otherwise than any sick person, concerning whose death it is not certainly clear." Marres, p. 387. n. 274.