Chapter I. On Killing Oneself, or on Suicide

I Say. It is never licit for anyone directly to kill himself; but sometimes it is licit to concur indirectly in the killing of oneself. The reason of the first is both because, from the natural law, man does not have direct dominion over his body, but only useful dominion and administration, since he received it from God and will be held to render it back to Him when He asks it back; and because man is essentially a servant in relation to God, but the condition of a servant necessarily requires that it not be in his own power to determine the time of serving. But the reason of the second is that to concur indirectly in the killing of oneself is the same as to place an action from which, beyond the intention, one's own death follows. But this must sometimes be licit, namely when the required conditions are verified, concerning which it was said in the tract on human acts, n. 8. Therefore. ... Cf. St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 64, art. 5. - Lugo, de just. et jur., disp. 10, nn. 9 and 17.

You Will Resolve. - 1st. It is not licit to mutilate oneself unless it is necessary for the preservation of the whole body, because man is not the lord of his members, but only their guardian, and whatever man is, it is wholly God's. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 373.

2nd. Likewise it is not licit to mutilate oneself for a spiritual good, or for avoiding any sin whatsoever. For as St. Thomas says: "Spiritual health can always be provided for otherwise than by the cutting off of a member, because sin is subject to the will. And therefore in no case is it licit to cut off a member on account of avoiding any sin whatsoever." Add that mutilation of this kind renders someone impotent for generating, yet does not exempt him from carnal temptations. But St. Alphonsus does not reject as improbable the opinion of those who say that mutilation of this kind is licit for the preservation of the voice, provided the moral danger of life is absent and it is not done to unwilling boys. - Cf. St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 65, art. 1. - St. Alphonsus, n. 374. - Baller., notes (a) and (b), p. 373.

3rd. It is never licit to macerate the body for shortening life, nor, even with such an end excluded, gravely to ruin health by immoderate and altogether indiscreet penances. Nevertheless, from virtue, it is licit to use penances ordinarily grave with a certain shortening of life; because, from the common opinion of the Doctors, for the sake of merit or the mortification of depraved nature some loss of longer life can be despised. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 371; and Hom. Ap., n. 2.

Question 1. Is someone held to use extraordinary remedies for preserving life?

Response. Negatively, and the reason is that an affirmative precept is not necessarily to be fulfilled in every possible way, but only in that way which is obvious and common; whence there is no obligation of preserving life except by ordinary means, namely those which neither bring great inconveniences, nor demand expenses immense according to the varied condition of each one, nor cause very bitter pains, etc. Thus, for example, you are not held, for the sake of preserving life, to suffer amputation of a leg or arm, or incision of the belly for extracting a stone. Nor is a virgin held to suffer an operation by the hands of a physician, even if life is endangered, when on account of shame this happens to her as something most grave, and instills in her a greater horror than death itself. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 372; and Hom. Ap., n. 2.

Question 2. Can a girl expose herself to danger of death for preserving virginity?

Response. Affirmatively, at least if death is not certainly going to follow, and this both on account of love of virginity and on account of the danger of sin which is often present in such an occasion. Indeed still more probably it must be affirmed, although death is certainly going to follow, and there is no proximate danger of consent, because even integrity of the body alone is valued very highly, and is a sufficient reason that some girl can permit herself to be killed. - I said can and not ought, because a girl of this kind is not held to undergo death for such a good, and therefore she could also permit her own violation, provided she resists positively by the will, and proximate danger of consent is absent. The reason is that this permission is not formal cooperation in the sin of another, but only material, and a just cause of permission is present, namely danger of death. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 368. - Baller., note (b), p. 371.

Question 3. Is it licit to set fire to a ship or tower, so that enemies may suffer grave damage, but with certain loss of one's own life?

Response. Affirmatively, at least more probably, because it is expedient that public harm be avoided or the common good procured even with the most certain harm of private persons. - Lugo, Lessius. - St. Alphonsus, n. 367.

Question 4. Can a guilty person, ordered by a judge, licitly inflict death upon himself?

Response. It is controverted. The common opinion denies. 1st. Because man would dispose of his life without the consent of the Lord, who gave the faculty of killing a man only in the cause of defense and in the cause of punishment; but the guilty person does not defend himself, nor can he exercise punitive justice toward himself; therefore he cannot kill himself. 2nd. Nature abhors this, since it is inhuman and cruel. - Cf. Lugo, disp. 10, n. 13. - Lessius, lib. 2, 19, nn. 25 and 26.

The other opinion probably affirms: both because the judge can entrust execution to whomever he wishes, and because no convincing contrary reason is brought forward: in the case he does not kill an innocent person, nor himself by his own authority. What prevents someone from bearing a twofold person, of the one punishing and the one punished? Certainly it is opposed to natural inclination, but this has force rather against the judge than against the guilty person. Even if the thing is cruel, it can often happen that by this death becomes easier; and surely it is difficult to prove conclusively that the guilty person in the case cannot inflict death upon himself. - Cf. Victoria, Relect. de homicidio. - St. Alphonsus III, n. 367. - Lehmkuhl, 733. - Ball.-Palm., vol. 2, p. 608.

Question 5. Is it licit for a woman to undergo ovariotomy, or for a man to undergo vasectomy?

Response. 1st. Affirmatively, in either case, if those operations are necessary for the health of the whole subject; for the member is for the subject. Thus commonly.

2nd. Negatively, in either case, if it is done precisely so that offspring may not be born. For thus the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office responded on May 22, 1895: "Whether the practice, whether active or passive, of a procedure is licit which intentionally proposes as its express end the sterilization of the woman. Response. Negatively"; therefore although the response concerns the woman, it certainly has force also for the man.

To induce sterility, or thus to deprive oneself of the power of generating and to impede the conception of offspring, or to effect that the semen is not prolific, is opposed to the principal intrinsic end of marriage, and to its good, namely offspring, to the natural end of the conjugal contract itself, to the intrinsic end of semen, and therefore is repugnant to the natural law, so that it cannot be made honorable by any good end. And hence Bossius: "Thirdly it is gathered that a husband or wife taking, or administering to them, a poison or potion of sterility, so that the man cannot generate or the woman conceive offspring, is a mortal sin against nature and the institution and law of marriage, so that it cannot be made honorable by any good end. ... The same is clear from the Bull of Sixtus V, Effrenatam; in which Bull Sixtus extended all penalties laid against those procuring abortion against all those who shall have given to women potions and poisons of sterility, and shall have furnished an impediment so that they not conceive offspring." Whence from the fact that a woman can no longer give birth, it is not thereby licit for her to take care that the tubes be cut or tied, and by equal reason it is not licit for a man unwilling to have offspring more numerous, or weak offspring, or any offspring at all, to undergo double vasectomy. - Nouvelle Revue Theol., v. 9, p. 432; v. 29, 367. - Diana, t. 5, tr. 6, 36, 2, 37. - Sylvius on 2-2, q. 64, a. 7, quest. 4, c. 3. - Sanchez, De Matrimonio, lib. IX, disp. 20, n. 2. - Azor, Ins. Mor., p. 3, lib. 11, chap. 4, q. 2. - St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 65, a. 1, ad 3. - Tabiena, Summa, v. uxor. - Turrianus, t. 2, disp. 26, nn. 46 and 47. - Eschbach, Disput. Phys. Theol., p. 371. The question is very ancient and the negative opinion was altogether most common.