5. On The Killing Of The Innocent In General

131. Principle 1. Never and for no one is it lawful directly to kill the innocent.

It is proved. No one except God alone has full dominion over the life and death of man, as has already been said. Therefore no one can dispose concerning the life of man except insofar as he is delegated by God. Now God indeed gave to the supreme civil power the delegated power of killing malefactors, since this is necessary for the common good of society; but He never conceded the power of killing even the innocent, because this would not only not be useful, but would be very harmful to human society. Indeed God commands most strictly: "You shall not kill the innocent and just."¹⁶² Wherefore it is a most grave sin to kill, for example, hostages, legates, especially infants not yet born, those lethally wounded, the old, the sick, the dying, lest they suffer longer, etc.

The killing of the innocent is a sin crying to heaven.¹⁶³ To such an extent does God detest homicide in Sacred Scripture that He says He will demand back even from beasts the penalty of the slaughter of men,¹⁶⁴ and commands the beast which has struck a man to be killed.¹⁶⁵ Deservedly the Roman Catechism says:¹⁶⁶ "They are murderers of the human race and therefore most bitter enemies of nature, who, as much as lies in them, overthrow the whole work of God, since they take away man, on whose account He testifies that He made all things whatever which have been created; indeed truly in Genesis, since man is forbidden to be killed because God created him to His image and likeness, he who takes away His image from the midst seems to bring an outstanding injury against God, and as it were to bring violent hands against Him."

The killing of the innocent can be either simple homicide, namely when a man not marked out by a special dignity or relation is killed; or qualified homicide, when the killing puts on a special malice. Qualified homicides are, for example, parricide, i.e., the killing of a parent, spouse, or child; regicide, i.e., the killing of a king; sacrilege, i.e., the killing of a priest or another religious person; robbery-homicide, i.e., homicide done from thirst for money or another material good; assassination, i.e., homicide done by contract, etc.

Whether and in what way an obligation of restitution arises from homicide or mutilation will be said below, n. 204 sqq.

¹⁶² Ex. 23, 7.

¹⁶³ Cf. Gen. 4, 10.

¹⁶⁴ Gen. 9, 5.

¹⁶⁵ Ex. 21, 28.

¹⁶⁶ Part 3, c. 6, q. 9.

132. Principle 2. From a proportionately grave cause it is lawful to do or omit something indifferent in itself, from which, besides the intention, the death of an innocent person follows.

It is proved. In that case all the conditions are had for licitly placing a cause from which a double effect follows: one good, the other bad.

Hence, for example, in a just war it is lawful to direct warlike cannons against a city, although many innocent persons are killed; it is lawful to administer a necessary medicine to a pregnant mother, even if perhaps from it abortion and the death of the fetus will follow; it is lawful to hand over an innocent person whose life a tyrant demands; it is lawful to pierce through an innocent child whom an unjust aggressor has placed before himself, lest he himself be wounded. The reason is that in all these cases nothing else is directly intended except the preservation of one's own life, from which indirectly follows the death of the innocent person, to whom injury is inflicted by the tyrant alone or by the unjust aggressor alone.

It is not lawful to throw an innocent person into the sea in order to lighten a boat too much burdened and otherwise about to perish, nor to throw a child before pursuing wolves, who otherwise would devour both father and child. The reason is that in these two cases there is no unjust aggressor by reason of whom the innocent person ought to renounce his life.

Whether it is lawful to trample with a horse a child sitting on a narrow bridge, if there is no other way for saving life? Several authors answer affirmatively. Thus, for example, Busembaum says in St. Alphonsus:¹⁶⁷ "If you cannot flee death, with an enemy pursuing, except by a narrow way in which someone sitting there would have to be crushed, it is nevertheless lawful (provided nevertheless, if he is an infant, he has been baptized, as Cardinals Lugo and Escobar warn) to flee with his danger and destruction, beyond your intention."

But it seems better that the answer should be made with a distinction: If that danger of death has been caused to me by an unjust aggressor at least materially, it is lawful to act thus, because then the injustice of that aggressor redounds upon me and upon the child, and I can free myself by every means from such injustice; but if no injustice is present and the danger of death happens to me either from a just cause or from a physical cause, it is not lawful thus to crush the innocent person. For otherwise also abortion and craniotomy of the infant would be licit if the life of the mother cannot otherwise be preserved. Yet this is false, as will be said below. Hence, for example, if I cannot flee from a burning house except by trampling an infant, this is not lawful. The reason is that the infant has the same right to life as I do, nor am I excused on account of defense against an injustice inflicted upon me, because in reality no one has inflicted an injury upon me. Likewise one justly condemned to death, fleeing from the hands of the officers, cannot licitly trample a child coming in his way, even if otherwise he is again captured by the officers and punished with certain death.

The killing of the innocent in present times especially has place in the procurement of abortion and in the so-called craniotomy. Hence these must be treated specially.

¹⁶⁷ Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 393.