Direct and indirect killing of the innocent

It is never lawful directly to kill the innocent, or, in other words, it is never lawful to kill the innocent when the death is intended in itself, or when it is inflicted as a means to the attaining of some other object. Such an act is expressly forbidden by God: “‘ The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death.”¹ Reason, too, teaches us the same truth; for if ever it were lawful directly to kill the innocent, it would be so when such a death would be of great advantage to the commonwealth. But even to save the State an innocent man’s life must not be taken directly, for the State exists that good men may lead honourable and peaceful lives; the State is for the good citizens, not the good citizens for the State. Not even the good of the State, then, makes it right to take an innocent man’s life, and if that does not justify the act, nothing does.

¹ Exod. xxiii 7.

The death of the innocent may be permitted, not intended, when it follows from some action lawful in itself which also produces an equally immediate and good effect, and when this counterbalances the evil effect. This, again, is but the application of the principle of a double effect, and it is evident from what has been said before. The general of an army who orders the bombardment of a beleaguered town knows that his order cannot be executed without killing perhaps many innocent non-combatants, yet the action is not unlawful.

400. Principles. - I. It is never lawful directly to kill an innocent person, whether by private or public authority, even for procuring the public good; for it is an intrinsically evil action and expressly prohibited by divine law. Exod. 23. 7: Thou shalt not kill the innocent and just. - St. Alphonsus, n. 393.

II. It is lawful on account of a grave cause to place an action good in itself from which, besides the intention, the death of an innocent person follows, according to the principle of St. Thomas set forth above.

III. He is not guilty of homicide who, even without cause, but with diligence applied, places an action which does not bring death per se, from which nevertheless by accident homicide follows; because that homicide is altogether fortuitous and involuntary. But otherwise if he places an action which brings death per se, or is very dangerous, and from which death often follows, even if diligence is applied for forestalling damage. - St. Alphonsus, n. 398.

401. Resolves. - 1. It is not lawful to kill those lethally wounded, nor any other dying persons, lest they suffer longer; nor mad persons, lest they harm others, provided they can be restrained from harming otherwise. The reason is that, according to the well-known saying, evils are not to be done in order that good may be obtained.

2. It is not lawful to kill an innocent person for satisfying a tyrant demanding his death, even under penalty of the city to be overthrown, and even if he consented to his own death; the reason is that he does not have dominion over his own life. Yet more probably he could be compelled to hand himself over to the tyrant for the public good, and probably, if he were unwilling, even be handed over. - St. Alphonsus, n. 393, with others.

3. In war it is lawful to direct cannons against enemy positions, although from this some innocents also are going to suffer death; because their death follows besides the intention. - St. Alphonsus, ibid.

4. It is not lawful to kill legates or hostages, even if the enemies who sent them have not kept the given faith and have unjustly killed the hostages or legates sent to them; because they are innocent. - Busembaum and others commonly with St. Alphonsus, ibid.

5. Physicians, midwives, and guardians of infants and the infirm sin gravely if from grave negligence they either do not impede their death, or cause it, or hasten it. Likewise if from gravely culpable ignorance they furnish harmful things to the sick.

312. Principle: The direct killing of an innocent person is a most grave sin, injurious to God, to the neighbor, and to society. - I say most grave, because by taking away life it inflicts a most grave injury.

(a) It is a sin injurious to God; for, since He is the supreme lord of life and death, His rights are violated by such homicide; hence He severely reproves this crime both by the words related above: You shall not kill; and by these, which declare the former: "The innocent and just you shall not kill, because I abhor the impious."⁴

⁴ Exod., XXIII, 7.

(b) Injurious to the neighbor; for since, from what was said above (n. 295), life is a very excellent good, and a means of enjoying many other goods, both natural and supernatural, he who voluntarily takes away the life of an innocent person does him the greatest injury; and this indeed is greater when he leaves him no time to be reconciled to God, if he is in the state of mortal sin.

(c) Injurious to society; for since the innocent person is a useful member of society, injury is done to the community by prematurely cutting off this member; whence the more useful the citizen was, the graver the crime is.

313. Corollaries. (a) It is not licit to kill the lethally wounded, the old, the sick, the dying, lest they suffer longer; nor the insane, lest they harm others, provided they can be restrained otherwise; nor a mother placed in extremis, so that the infant can be baptized; all these retain the right to life, and must be committed to God, who alone can dispose of their life.

(b) Nor can hostages (otages) be killed, even if the enemies who sent them have not kept the faith given, indeed even if they have killed other hostages.

(c) They sin gravely who, from whatever motive, kill infants, or directly accelerate their death: for these are innocent. Parents are guilty of a horrible crime who hand over their own children to others to be killed, so that they may make the insurance price their own.¹

¹ "Parents without entrails insure at a high rate the head of very young children, and, coldly, slowly, let them die of starvation and misery. The death which carries off these little beings, revealing no manifest violence, is most often reputed natural, and secures good annuities to its skillful and sinister authors." (Dr. Surbled, op. cit., t. III, p. 238). - Concerning the killing of an infant in the mother's womb we speak in the Supplement to the Treatise on Matrimony, n. 72-78.

(d) Sometimes relatives or kin of someone deceased ask from the physician that the heart of the dead man be pierced or an artery opened, lest perhaps he be buried alive. Now if the physician seriously doubts concerning death, he cannot perform this, since he would expose himself to the danger of killing a man who perhaps survives; but if certain signs of death are present, puncture of the heart is not illicit, since this is done only to free relatives from vain anxieties.

314. Principle: It is not licit to place an action from which certainly or probably the death of an innocent person will follow indirectly, unless from a proportionately grave cause and with a right intention. This is clear from what was said where indirect suicide was treated, above, n. 302.

Hence (a) in a just war it is licit to direct artillery (canons) against a besieged city, even if it is foreseen that many innocents will perish from this, provided this is held as a necessary and efficacious means for attacking the city; nevertheless it is equitable that the head of the city first be warned, so that women and infants can flee to a safe place.¹

¹ Bonfils, Manuel de Droit international, 3rd edition, Paris, 1901, n. 1083-1086.

(b) If someone, while an enemy pursues, cannot avoid death except by passing through a narrow way, with the danger of trampling an innocent person, he can do this.

(c) It is not licit for a physician, for the sake of experiment, to use a new remedy, or to perform a dangerous operation, when a more efficacious and less rash remedy is at hand.²

² Guermonprez, L'assassinat medical et le respect de la vie humaine, Paris, 1904.

315. (d) Likewise, in industrial matters, those sin who use dangerous materials or machines, from which the life of workers is placed in great danger, especially where the law prohibits this.³

³ P. Pic recounts the principal laws recently promulgated concerning this matter in various regions, Traite elementaire de legislation industrielle, Paris, 1903, n. 609-648.

(e) But he who places an action of itself not dangerous, or rarely and therefore not probably dangerous, from which nevertheless death follows by chance, is not morally guilty of homicide, provided he has applied ordinary diligence; thus a hunter who, while he gives himself to hunting with due diligence, by chance kills a man; for then he neither could nor ought to have foreseen death; otherwise it would have to be said if he is guilty of negligence, e.g., by imprudently playing with a gun; then he is gravely or lightly guilty, according as the negligence was grave or light.⁴

⁴ Concerning accidental homicide, with respect to French law, see Cod. pen., a. 319-320.

I. In order to solve the preceding questions rightly, it is necessary to recall certain principles of moral theology: namely, one from the general doctrine concerning human acts, and several other special principles from the particular matters concerning justice and charity.

II. From the doctrine concerning human acts we know that it is licit to place a cause which produces at the same time a good effect and an evil effect, if four conditions are present:

1. if the action in itself, that is, circumstances set aside, is not evil, but honorable or at least indifferent;

2. if the good effect follows from the cause at least as immediately as the evil one, or does not follow by means of the evil; otherwise it would be to work or effect good through evil, and therefore to will evil in some way as a means to good, although evils are not to be done that goods may come about;

3. if the evil effect is not intended, but only the good one; otherwise the evil effect would be voluntary in itself, or at least willed;

4. if there is a reason for placing the cause, and indeed a proportionately grave one, that is, so that the good procured exceeds or equals, and thus compensates for, the evil.

On the contrary, it is illicit if the action is evil in itself or has only an immediate evil effect, even if further from it there is procured, and intended by the agent, a much greater good effect. For although in judging the morality of the interior act of the will, it is necessary above all to regard the intention, nevertheless in judging the morality of the exterior act, one must consider not so much where it is ultimately terminated or what is intended by the agent, but first of all what is immediately done; and if that is evil, or if it immediately produces only an evil effect, even if further it tends or is ordered to some greatest good, it will always remain intrinsically evil.

III. From the doctrine concerning justice we know that man does not have dominion over the human body and life, but only its author, God, has it. Hence man cannot directly dispose of life, whether his own or another's, except according as it has been conceded to him by God. Now:

1. God has conceded this for the public good, but only to public authority, whether a) in a just war to be carried on by that authority, or b) for punishing evildoers by that authority, and perhaps c) for a private good to individual men for defending life against unjust aggression, although this rather seems to be, and is better called, indirect killing:¹ for this is permitted only because from the action there follows equally immediately a compensating good effect, namely the defense or preservation of the one attacked;

¹ Thus Saint Thomas explains it, II-II, q. 64, a. 7.

2. God has conceded no right over the life of an innocent person, which therefore in no case can be directly taken away, because this is always gravely unjust;

3. indirect killing can be licit if it follows from a legitimate action which equally immediately produces a greater, or at least equal, good effect; namely, this is not directly to kill, but to expose oneself to the danger of killing.

A fortiori, one's neighbor has a right to the salvation of the soul, and it is unjust to impede it.

IV. From the doctrine concerning charity we know that we are bound to love our neighbor more with respect to his soul and salvation than our own body and bodily life; likewise more with respect to the life of the body than our own temporal goods, but not more than our own life. Although licitly we can expose that life, this is not because we love another's life more, but because of the good of virtue, which is a spiritual good of the soul and thus surpasses bodily life. Hence:

1. In the extreme danger of our neighbor's salvation, we are bound under grave obligation to aid him even with certain danger of life, provided there is probable hope of helping him and no graver evil is feared.

2. In grave danger of our neighbor's salvation, we must aid him under grave obligation with some rather great detriment in temporal goods, but not with danger of life, unless someone is bound from justice by reason of office.

3. In extreme danger of our neighbor's life, we are bound under grave obligation to aid him with notable temporal detriment of our own, but not by extraordinary means nor with danger to our own life.

4. Although we are not bound, nevertheless we can licitly, charity persuading it, expose our life in grave danger of another's salvation, because this is worth more than our life; likewise in grave danger of another's life, because of the good of virtue, gratitude, friendship, the honor of God, or the public good; not because we esteem another's life more than our own, but because the good of virtue, which is spiritual, can be preferred to the good of one's own life, which is bodily.

Fortified with these principles, we now approach the solution of the questions.

III. Directly procured abortion, by whatever way it is obtained, is illicit, as being intrinsically evil and unjust, even if the fetus otherwise certainly is going to die, while now provision is made for his salvation since he can be baptized, and there is no other means for saving the mother.³ The reason is that it immediately produces nothing except the separation of the fetus from the mother and thus directly brings death to the fetus, who is a man or on the way to man; whence it is the direct killing of a man, or equivalent to it. And therefore in the case the principles which hold concerning the killing of a man must be applied. Namely, abortion deprives the fetus of the office of the placenta, by which he adheres to the mother and receives nourishment and purification of the blood; and these two things are altogether necessary for life to the fetus; therefore to deprive the fetus of such things is truly to kill him, just as to kill a man by hunger. Thus the Holy Office responded, 14 Aug. 1889; 24 Jul. 1895; and 4 May 1898.⁴

³ Whence not only abortion which is customarily held criminal, procured for a non-legitimate end, e.g., for avoiding infamy or the inconveniences of gestation, is illicit; but truly also that which is called medical. Physicians employ it for saving the mother: 1) when they notice that the mother, because of narrowness, cannot bring forth the infant, that she shrinks from Caesarean section, and that acceleration of birth is impossible, preventive abortion; 2) when they foresee that the sick mother, e.g., from pulmonary phthisis, very probably or certainly is going to die on account of the pregnancy itself unless the fetus is expelled; or for another cause from the presence of the fetus the life of the mother is endangered, e.g., on account of uncontrollable vomiting, repressive abortion.

⁴ Before the Roman decisions, certain theologians, such as Ballerini and Lehmkuhl, in certain cases considered abortion more benignly.

They object: It is not killing, but a cessation from the preservation of the fetus, by which the mother allows him to fall out from her womb and so permits him to perish; but the mother is not bound to preserve the offspring with the loss of her life.

Resp. It is not a mere cessation or omission by which it is indirectly permitted, or not impeded, that the fetus is not preserved, in the same way as if, in spontaneous abortion, nature ceases from preserving the fetus; but it is a positive death-dealing action which breaks off and impedes the preservation of the fetus by nature, and a violent disturbance of the natural condition. It is positively to act so that the fetus is separated from the mother and thus placed in a state of necessary death. Whence death is not merely permitted but directly procured, and therefore the action is directly destructive and intrinsically evil.

IV. Indirectly procured abortion is generally illicit; nevertheless sometimes it can be licit from a proportionately grave cause. Whence it is licit or illicit according to diverse circumstances.

A. It is illicit:

1. if someone intends the very expulsion of the fetus in itself, whether as an end or as a means for procuring a good effect;

or 2. if there is not present a just proportionate cause, e.g., if there is another sufficient means for procuring the good effect, or if not all things are employed for impeding abortion, or if the good effect does not equal the evil;

or 3. if the good effect is procured through the mediation of the evil, i.e., not immediately from the means employed, but from the expulsion of the fetus and the cessation of pregnancy. Then, however, the abortion becomes not indirect but direct: abortion would be the remedy from which the safety of the mother would arise, and would be directly chosen as a means, e.g., that she herself might be preserved from vomiting by means of abortion.

B. It can be licit from a just cause, if at the same time the following conditions are verified:

1. the means employed are in themselves good or indifferent;

2. the good effect, and not the evil, is willed in itself;

3. the good effect compensates for the harms of the evil effect; whence abortion is altogether illicit if it would impede the infant's Baptism or if he also would be deprived of a reasonable hope of receiving this sacrament; and therefore it is always necessary that provision be made for Baptism in the better way;⁵

⁵ Nevertheless it rarely happens that abortion impedes Baptism: for almost always the fetus, in a perplexing case, will die before the mother, so that he cannot be baptized; otherwise for the most part the infant will be able to be baptized in the uterus, or after abortion has followed.

4. the good effect is caused immediately and not by means of the evil effect; whence the means of themselves and directly cure the mother's illness or turn away danger from her, not mediately through abortion;

5. there is no other means of obtaining the good effect;

6. all precautions are employed for impeding the evil effect insofar as it is possible, and therefore that no more be done than is necessary for saving the mother.

In one word: if it is done on account of a just, good, proportionate cause, and all care is employed that abortion be avoided as much as can be done.

I. Acceleration of delivery is the artificial expulsion from the mother's uterus of a fetus not fully mature but already viable, so that he can live outside the uterus.

It is not illicit if it is done for just causes and at that time and in those ways by which, according to things ordinarily happening, provision is made for the lives of the mother and fetus (S. Off., 4 May 1898). The reason is that, on the one hand, it is not the killing of the infant, since he can live, but only some danger for mother and offspring is present, and yet not so imminent; on the other hand, the fetus is compelled to undergo a small danger to life on account of grave compensating reasons.

Nevertheless it is illicit if it is done without sufficient reason, since it is not licit rashly to break off the course of nature and to incur some danger except in order to preserve the mother or offspring from a greater danger; but the extracted infant is weak, and therefore delivery is not without some danger for his life. Hence the less grave the danger of the mother is, the greater probability, or as it were moral certainty, is required that the infant will continue to live. And the graver the danger for the fetus from prolongation of gestation is, the more easily delivery can be accelerated or another operation instituted, e.g., Caesarean section.

II. In practice, artificial delivery is licit in a threefold case:

1. whenever it is foreseen that the offspring, if he arrives at the normal term, cannot be born naturally because of the narrowness of the mother, because then he will be in greater danger;

2. whenever grave danger to the life of the mother or offspring is pressing, unless the fetus be brought forth by accelerated delivery, because then the danger of the mother to be turned away is greater than the danger to which the infant is exposed from accelerated delivery;

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.

472. Principles. - I. It is never licit directly to kill an innocent, whether by private authority or public, even for procuring the public good; for it is an intrinsically evil action and expressly prohibited by divine law.⁴ The innocent and just you shall not kill.⁵

II. It is licit, on account of a grave cause (that is, equal to the life of the innocent), to posit an honest action from which, beyond the intention, the death of an innocent follows, according to the principle of St. Thomas set forth at n. 461.

III. He is not guilty of homicide who, even without cause, but with diligence applied, posits an action which of itself does not bring death, from which nevertheless by accident homicide follows; because that homicide is altogether fortuitous and involuntary. But otherwise, if he posits an action which of itself brings death, or is very dangerous, and from which death often follows, even if diligence has been applied for preventing damage.¹

473. You will resolve. - 1° It is not licit to kill those lethally wounded, nor any other moribund persons whatever, lest they suffer longer; nor those who are rabid, lest they harm others, provided they can otherwise be held back from harming. The reason is that according to the known maxim evils are not to be done in order that goods may be obtained.

2° It is not licit to kill an innocent in order to satisfy a tyrant demanding his death even under penalty of a city to be overthrown, and even if he consented to his own death; the reason is that he does not have dominion over his own life. Yet more probably he could be compelled to hand himself over to the tyrant for the public good, and probably, if he were unwilling, even to be handed over. St. Alphonsus² with others.

3° It is licit in war to direct artillery against the stations of enemies, although from this even some innocents are going to suffer death; because their death follows beyond the intention.³

4° It is not licit to kill envoys or hostages, even if the enemies who sent them have not kept the faith given, and have unjustly killed hostages or envoys sent to them; because they are innocent. - Busembaum, and others commonly with St. Alphonsus.⁴

5° Physicians, midwives, and guardians of infants and the infirm sin gravely if, from grave negligence, they either do not impede, or cause, or accelerate their death. Likewise if from gravely culpable ignorance they furnish harmful things to the sick.

6° It is not licit for those voyaging, tossed at sea and escaping from shipwreck in a skiff, for the sake of lightening the skiff, which otherwise they fear is to be sunk, to throw into the sea any others than those who, last descending into the skiff, are the cause why it is to be sunk.

359. Thesis II. Direct killing of the innocent is a most grave sin, injurious not only to God and society, but also to one's neighbor. - It is proved: For by its own nature it contains a threefold injustice:

a) against God, whose dominion it violates, since He is the owner of human life and of the human body; whence it is never licit directly to kill an innocent person, unless God commands;

b) against society, which it unjustly deprives of the utility of one of its members, while it is unwilling;

c) against one's neighbor, whom, while unwilling, it deprives of the use of the greatest temporal good, which is the foundation or condition of every other good.

Whence also it is prohibited by divine law: Exod. XX, 13: You shall not kill; or more explicitly, XXIII, 7: "The innocent and just you shall not kill, because I abhor the impious."

Hence it is unjust: 1) to kill lethally wounded persons, old men, the sick, the dying, lest they suffer longer, or directly to hasten their death; likewise to kill madmen, lest they harm others, unless here and now they cannot otherwise be restrained, for then they are unjust aggressors; or also in shipwreck to cast some companions into the sea so that the rest may be saved;

2. to kill a mother placed in extremities, so that the infant can be baptized; but she herself, if her life can be hoped for, must undergo the operation so that the infant may be baptized;

3. to kill ambassadors or hostages, even if the enemies who sent them have not kept given faith, indeed have killed other hostages: for they are innocent;

4. to kill infants or directly hasten their death from whatever motive;

5. to ask for or perform puncture of the heart upon a deceased person, namely, to puncture the heart or open an artery in him who is reputed deceased, lest perhaps he be buried alive if death is not entirely certain, because this is to expose oneself to the danger of killing a man.³

³ To the question whether it is licit, by mandate of public authority, directly to kill those who, although they have committed no crime worthy of death, nevertheless on account of psychic or physical defects can no longer benefit the nation, and are judged rather to burden it and to obstruct its vigor and strength, the Holy Office recently responded: In the negative, since it is contrary to natural right and positive divine right (27 Nov. - 2 Dec. 1940).

360. Thesis III. Indirect killing generally is not licit, unless from a just and proportionately grave cause, that is, from a greater good which immediately follows from the action and not by means of the killing.

It is proved: For it is not licit to cause an evil effect, the death of another, unless the cause also immediately produces an effect so good that it compensates the evil; as was said in qu. 2, n. 352.

Hence 1) it is not illicit: in a just war to direct engines of war against a besieged city, although many innocent persons perhaps are killed, provided that it is an efficacious means for attacking the city; to give a necessary medicine to a pregnant mother, although perhaps abortion and the death of the fetus follow; to pierce through an innocent child whom an unjust aggressor has placed before himself lest he be wounded, because the unjust aggression redounds upon the child, indeed, according to some, to flee through a narrow way, while an enemy is pursuing, with danger of trampling a child (if that child has been baptized); but otherwise if the danger of death were from a just cause or from a natural cause such as fire.

2. On the contrary it is illicit for a physician, for the sake of experiment, to use a new remedy or perform a dangerous operation, when a more efficacious and less rash remedy is at hand; likewise to throw a child before pursuing wolves, who otherwise would devour several others, or to cast some into the sea for lightening a boat otherwise to be sunk, unless those who were last to go down into it are the cause why it is to be sunk: for these alone are harmful; the rest are innocent.

3. It is licit, for sparing a city, to hand over an innocent person whose life a tyrant or enemy demands, indeed even to command him himself to hand himself over for the common good; but not to kill him, even if he consents.

I say. It is never licit directly to kill an innocent person, whether by private or by public authority. The reason is both because the killing of an innocent person is an action injurious to the rights of God, who alone has supreme dominion over life, and accordingly intrinsically evil; and because it is injurious to the right which the innocent person has to life; and because it is positively prohibited by God himself; for it is said, Exod. xxiii, 7: "The innocent and just person you shall not kill." But this does not prevent that sometimes an action of itself good or indifferent can be posited, from which the death of an innocent person follows beyond the intention, according to those things which were said concerning the indirectly voluntary in the treatise on human acts, nn. 8 and 9.

You Will Ask. Is it licit for the state to render an innocent man or woman sterile, either by performing vasectomy on a man or ovariotomy on a woman, precisely so that offspring may not be born?

Response. Negatively, because it is not licit to mutilate innocent persons even for saving the state: just as it is not licit for an individual to render himself sterile precisely for this end, that offspring may not be born, so neither is it licit for the state. Because this would be to rule subjects despotically and thus to invert the natural end of the state. The commonwealth cannot convert the life of its members to its own utility and consume it for the sake of its own utility, because citizens are not ordered for the commonwealth, but the commonwealth is ordered for citizens and for their utility and good. Namely, the subject is not a slave: the former is governed politically for the utility of the subject; the latter despotically for the utility of the master. Thus Lugo, disp. 10, 77, 104. Again: "it is licit for no one to violate with impunity the dignity of man, of which God himself disposes with great reverence." Leo XIII, Rerum Nov. Now to the dignity of man certainly belongs the generative power. Indeed not only is it not licit for the state to act thus, but on the contrary, for the protection of bodily goods, the state itself is bound by its own force; and it is necessary to rescue the wretched from the savagery of men. "Rights indeed, in whomever they are, are to be preserved sacredly, and that each one may hold his own, public authority ought to provide, by warding off and avenging injuries. Except that in protecting the rights of private persons, regard must especially be had for the weak and the needy." Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. No law of men can take away from man the natural and primordial right of marriage or circumscribe in any manner whatsoever the principal cause of nuptials established in the beginning by the authority of God. "Increase and multiply" (Gen. i, 28). Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. But those who wish this law to be enacted surely circumscribe that cause. Thus St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 104, a. 5: "Now man is bound to obey man in those things which are to be done outwardly through the body; in which, however, according to those things which pertain to the nature of the body, man is not bound to obey man, but only God, because all men are equal by nature; for example, in those things which pertain to the sustenance of the body and the generation of offspring." All such laws are unjust.

You Will Resolve. - 1st. It is not licit to kill those lethally wounded, nor any other dying persons, lest they suffer longer; because, according to the known saying, evils are not to be done to obtain a good.

2nd. It is not licit to kill an innocent person in order to satisfy a tyrant demanding his death, even under penalty of the overthrow of a city, and even if he himself consented to his own death: because he cannot properly consent, since he does not have dominion over his own life. Yet more probably he could be compelled to hand himself over to the tyrant for the public good, and probably, if he refused, even be handed over. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 393.

3rd. It is not licit to kill envoys or hostages, even if the enemies who sent them have not kept the pledge given, and have unjustly killed the hostages or envoys sent to them; because they are innocent. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, ibid.