Eugenics and Sterilization

What mutilation is, and what direct and indirect mutilation are, has been set forth in the treatise on charity (n. 526). Now proceed:

I. Direct mutilation of an innocent person, with the required consent posited, is lawful if it is ordered and necessary for the preservation or well-being of the whole body. Otherwise it is illicit. For the reasons brought forward where there was discussion of direct mutilation of oneself have force (n. 526).

II. Indirect mutilation of an innocent person is per se illicit; but for a proportionate cause it becomes lawful, as was said about indirect mutilation of oneself (n. 526).

III. Imprisonment of an innocent person is likewise illicit, because each person has a right of procuring his own good even by external action; this right is violated by one who imprisons someone (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 65, a. 3).

IV. Finally, beating of an innocent person is illicit, because each person has a right to the delight or quiet of his senses, "to which beating is opposed, or anything whatever that affects the sense with pain" (St. Thomas, loc. cit.).

V. Nor is it lawful for public authority directly to mutilate an innocent person; for just as it is not lawful for it to deprive an innocent person of life (n. 731), so also and for the same reason it is illicit to deprive him of the integrity and use of members (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 108, a. 4, ad 2). Likewise it is illicit for it to imprison or beat an innocent person, because neither can public authority injure the goods of the body of innocent persons; and goods of the body, besides life and integrity of members, are the use of members, which is impeded by imprisonment, and the quiet of the sense, to which beating is opposed (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 65, a. 3).

Nor does public authority lawfully impose mutilation, for example vasectomy, oophorectomy, and so forth, for this end, that the procreation of weak, miserable, and similar offspring may be forestalled. Thus expressly Pius XI in the encyclical Casti connubii.¹ And the Holy Office, to the question, "What must be thought of the theory called eugenic, whether positive or negative, and of the means indicated by it for improving human progeny, with laws, whether natural, divine, or ecclesiastical, concerning marriage and the rights of individuals set aside," answered on March 31, 1931: "That it is altogether to be disapproved and to be held as false and condemned, as in the encyclical letter on Christian marriage, Casti connubii, given on December 31, 1930."² And indeed, first, the end does not justify a perverse means, such as the mutilation of an innocent person. Next, neither can public authority directly impede the good of the species, since it is ordered to no intermediate end, but to God alone, and therefore cannot be impeded for any intermediate end.³

Objection 1. Public authority can provide for the common good; consequently it can mutilate an innocent person and impede the good of the species, if that is necessary for the common good.

Resp. I deny the consequence; or rather, public authority can provide for the common good, but not by an evil means, of which sort are mutilating an innocent person and impeding the good of the species.

Objection 2. Public authority can provide for the good of the species. But by impeding the procreation of weak offspring it provides for the species.

Resp. That public authority can provide for the good of the species by using an evil means, such as mutilation of an innocent person, I deny. Besides, the Minor must be denied, because the good of the species pertains in no way to the accidental condition of the offspring.

¹ December 31, 1930.

² Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1931, p. 118.

³ Cf. Brouillard in Etudes, 1931, p. 440 sq. and 578 sq.; Dr. Grosam in Theologisch-praktische Quartalschrift, 1931, p. 497 sq.

Morality of Sterilization. Mutilations which frustrate the power of procreation in men and women are called sterilization. Two kinds are distinguished; indirect, to remove diseased organs; direct, to prevent conception.

(a) Indirect sterilization (also called by many therapeutic) is lawful when it is necessary to save life or health. The ethical principle involved is the indirect voluntary or the principle of double effect. Hence, vasectomy may be used to prevent idiocy or death, or to remove or allay physiological abnormalities that bring on certain sexual perversities or disturbances, if it is likely that these evils are imminent or present and that the operation will be beneficial.

(b) Direct sterilization by public authority includes both punitive and eugenical sterilization. The latter was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii. In context the Holy Father was dealing with the false claims made in the name of eugenics that the State might legitimately sterilize those who by reason of hereditary defect might be considered likely to generate defective offspring. This position is vehemently rejected: “Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects. Therefore where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason. St. Thomas teaches this when, inquiring whether human judges for the sake of preventing future evils can inflict punishment, he admits that the power indeed exists as regards certain other forms of punishment, but justly and properly denies it as regards the maiming of the body.”

In the same context, punitive sterilization, whether as punishment for crime or as deterrent, was also declared to be unlawful. However, fasciole 14 of the AAS for 1930 emended the text and seems to have withdrawn the formal condemnation of punitive sterilization. a subject of theological discussion at the time. The matter had not been closed and the emendation had the force of reopening the question.

Theological opinion is still divided as to the liceity of punitive sterilization. Some still maintain that since the state can inflict the superior penalty of death for serious crime, a fortiori also the lesser punishment of sterilization. Others deny the liceity, for sterilization does not achieve the essential purposes of punishment; it is not corrective, preventive, retributive, or emendatory. Accordingly punitive sterilization is unreasonable and inconvenient. This latter view prevails among most modern moral theologians. Confirmation for the view is sought in the response of the Holy Office (AAS 32-73) that direct sterilization is prohibited by the law of nature. Since punitive sterilization has as its immediate effect, whether as an end or as a means, sterility of the generative potency, it may well fall under the category of direct and hence also under condemnation of the Holy Office.

On the contrary, efforts and researches which tend to improve the health and vigor of the human race are in themselves praiseworthy. The Holy Father teaches that we may, and should, take account of the findings and recommendations of this science or art.

But the end does not justify the means. One cannot give to eugenics such primacy as to forget the law of God in order to satisfy its demands. On March 21 of this year (1931) the Holy Office, with the approval of the Holy Father, declared that we must absolutely reject and hold as false and condemned by the Encyclical “Casti Connubii” of December 31, 1930, the so-called “eugenic” doctrine, as well “positive” eugenics as “negative,” together with the means which it indicates for the improvement of the human race, by neglecting the laws of nature, of God, or of the Church, concerning marriage and the rights of individuals.¹ The Holy Father takes occasion in this connection to remind public authorities that it is their duty to protect the lives of the innocent, especially of those who cannot defend themselves. To deliver them to death, even at the hands of physicians, is to commit a crime that cries to heaven for vengeance.²

¹ Acta Ap. Sedis, Vol. XXXII, p. 118.

² P. 56.

We must distinguish between abortion (the moralists call it abortion when a child who is not viable is removed) and premature delivery. The latter will be allowed when it is practised at such a time and by such means that under ordinary conditions the lives of both the mother and the child will be provided for.¹

¹ Reply of the Holy Office, May 4, 1898, reply to question 2.

In the first place, the child must be already viable. At present, thanks to artificial incubators the child may be said to be viable after about six months of life within the womb. But this initial viability is a very different thing from full viability which requires at least eight months. Between these two periods viability goes through varying degrees, in which the chances of life are unequal. Moreover, premature delivery is more or less harmful to the child, according to his degree of maturity. Mere viability may not, therefore, always be a sufficient reason for delivering a child of six months. If there is imminent danger, the

operation will be legitimate as soon as the child has a chance to survive. If such a danger is not certain, then its probabilities must be considered, as well as the harm that would result from prolonging the pregnancy; and in the absence of a controlling reason of this nature, one should wait the full eight months. In short, the formula of the Holy Office gives us this rule: Consider the two lives, that of the mother and that of the child, as of equal value; and do what is for the best interests of both, everything considered, and without forgetting that the saving of the mother’s life is a very great benefit to the child himself.

The Holy Father in no wise admits that the State may for eugenic reasons directly forbid marriage to persons who are naturally capable of fulfilling its functions; and still less does he admit the right of the State to so mutilate a person as to deprive him of a natural faculty.¹ In our day those who cultivate the science of eugenics will willingly grant that their studies are not sufficiently advanced, nor their conclusions sufficiently certain to enable even themselves, just yet, to advocate such radical measures. But these arguments lead only to a tentative answer. Accordingly the Holy Father passes over these considerations, and, by a peremptory and definite answer, confronts the “eugenists” with the principle of the incompetence of the civil authority.

¹ Pp. 42, 43.

It can be shown first from a true concept of human society. The mission of society is by no means to deprive man of rights which he had before, but rather to facilitate and protect the normal exercise of these rights. As long as there is no question of persons guilty of crime, the State cannot, even for the common good, restrict rights, other than those which come from itself, such as political rights. It can also be shown from the dignity of a human person. Man, with his body and its members, does not belong to himself; he belongs to God and to His Christ. God gives him only the use thereof. The consent of the individual could not therefore avail to transfer to others a right which he never had himself.

The Encyclical does not pronounce on these questions. It does not intend either to approve or to condemn such measures. Our own humble opinion would be for the negative, at least at the present time, for the reason that this type of punishment is repugnant to our penal system which does not favor corporal punishments directly and positively applied, such as whipping.

According to the Encyclical “Casti Connubii”¹ such persons should often be advised not to marry; but if they are otherwise capable of marrying, they cannot be charged with grave sin in neglecting the advice.

¹ P. 42.

Because the prevision of defective children diminishes for the parties themselves the hope of a happy union, and suggests temptations against right conduct in married life. Neither is it right to aggravate without necessity the burdens that weigh down public administration or private charity.

Because there may be grave reasons, either of a private nature, such as the moral weakness of the parties, or of a public nature, such as for example the need of an heir for a throne or for an illustrious family, which outweigh the undesirable consequences of such unions. Let us not forget the words of the Apostle: It is better to marry than to burn with the flame of unrestrained passion.¹

have to suffer and also, by fostering feelings of sympathy, which is a sentiment of so social a nature that an unbelieving philosopher² ranked it above all others; by bringing into play the noble virtue of charity and by delivering men from the selfishness which seeks enjoyment for its own sake. How dull, sad, and cold life would be in a society where there were no unfortunates to help, no afflicted ones to console.

¹ “It is better to marry than to be burnt.” I Cor. vii, 9. Neither must we forget that those whom nature has, so to speak, disinherited have still the sublime last end of human individuals, and can still attain eternal blessedness. Indirectly, they even render a service to society by detaching the affections of men from this earth where so many

² Schopenhauer, Grundlage der Moral (Complete Works, Munich, 1912, Vol. III, p. 678).

Because the power of procreation gives him the right to contract marriage. The exercise of a right does not involve in itself any contradiction of the essential order, and cannot therefore, as such, be stigmatized as a grave sin.

The text of the Encyclical does not exclude venial sin, but neither does it affirm that one is committed in every case. It simply abstracts from the question of venial sin.

The fact that in the use of the right, though there is no violation of the essential order, there is nevertheless a yielding to a disordered inclination. Such would be the case for instance if a person physically unfit should insist on marrying, although a life of continence were not beyond his power. The venial sin, therefore, is found in the inopportune use of a right, just as, in the state of marriage, such a sin is committed when the parties use their right in a somewhat irregular fashion.

The State could exercise such power, at least by putting

itself in agreement with the competent authority, which, in the case of baptized persons, is the Church.

That is the claim made by some eugenists; but the better informed contest the value of their arguments. It seems rather that nature herself tends to eliminate the unfit.¹

¹ See for example Oswald Bumke, Lehrbuch der Geisteskrankheiten, Munich, 1924, p. 347; Jaschke und Pankow, Lehrbuch der Gynäkologie, Berlin, 1921, p. 494.

The power of condemning guilty persons to seclusion in virtue of vindicative justice, and the power to protect society against dangerous persons by imprisoning them, and by segregating those whose contact would spread disease.

It attacks, not the children whom it permits to be born and to live, but those whom it prevents from being born. These suffer an irreparable personal wrong, because the others can never take their place. At the same time, more directly, it attacks marriage in the natural right man has to marry. For two reasons, therefore, the Encyclical had to condemn its exaggerations.

The uses of the scalpel which chiefly pertain to our subject are especially these in the man:

50. - Circumcision, which cuts away an excessively narrow prepuce, or phimosis, is very useful for removing excessive irritation arising from various things gradually collected under the skin. The less good habits of boys are often to be imputed to phimosis.

51. - Castration consists essentially in the removal of both testicles.

Sometimes, as among the Turks, the penis itself is removed from those who serve in the "harem." These were called carsamatia. The effects of the cutting short vary according to the age at which it was done.

Those who are castrated before the seventh year of age retain a body greatly altered physically; they are impotent for completing copulation, and generally, though not always, remain immune from sexual libido. They are also affected not a little morally as a result, and are not accustomed to possess a virile spirit. In adulthood, however, this mutilation has little influence upon the exterior appearance of the body; at least for a long time, if the penis has been preserved, it permits the faculty of copulation to remain. Nor is libido quieted by this operation. Sacred Scripture itself testifies to the libidinous affection of eunuchs when it says, "The lust of a eunuch shall deflower a young maiden" ¹; and to their impatient impotence when it adds, "Seeing with his eyes and groaning, like a eunuch embracing a virgin and sighing" ². The comic poet Terence also reports it in this verse: "But, by Pollux, I had heard that they were the greatest lovers of women, but could do nothing" ³.

¹ Ecclesiasticus 20:2.

² Ibid., 30:21.

³ Eunuchus, act 4, scene 3.

Castrated boys are also deprived of the secondary signs of virility: beard, hair, and masculine voice.

Wherefore, since a stable sexual depravity can scarcely be established before adulthood, since the operation is otherwise gravely harmful, and since its very efficacy upon venereal appetite is uncertain, castration cannot be recommended as a remedy for perverted appetite ⁴.

⁴ Compare Féré, op. cit., pp. 9-11; Forel, op. cit., p. 24; Moll, op. cit., pp. 154, 156, 157, 673.

When it must be done because of disease, physicians are accustomed to supply artificial testicles, lest the castrated man be too greatly afflicted by a visible sign of impotence.

52. - Vasectomy or deferentectomy resects the vas deferens above both testicles, by which the sperm properly so called is conducted to the urethral canal. Since only the exterior secretion of the testicle is removed, sexual appetite remains, so that the faculty of intercourse by no means ceases; but, since nemaspermata are lacking, copulation necessarily becomes sterile.

There are some, especially in America, who proclaim this operation most effective for tempering an excessively burning libido; and they declare at the same time that it can be brought about without great difficulty that the canal is afterwards restored. But a true demonstration of its efficacy is still lacking ⁵; and other physicians entirely deny that the separated parts of the vessel can easily be joined well again. Compare the Reverend Father Ferreres, De vasectomia duplici, etc.

⁵ Because of the things which we noted above concerning the twofold secretion, a diminution of sexual libido, if there is any, would have to be explained by a certain hidden alteration of the testicles.

53. In the woman, moreover, besides:

1. Certain operations which pertain here, so that the opening of the vagina may be dilated or opened; or, contrariwise, that the labia dilated by intercourse may be contracted and virginity apparently restored, even with the hymen repaired; we must mention:

2. Castration, by which the ovaries are removed. Observe, however, that the perfect excision of both ovaries can be established with certainty, at least when a certain manner of operating has been employed.

3. Sometimes the uterus itself is excised together with the ovaries; this operation is called Porro from the physician who originated it.

Note well. Among uncultivated peoples, incisions are sometimes made in the exterior labia of the sexual parts, which, because they imitate male circumcision, are called by the same name of circumcision.

4. By the general name laparotomy are designated operations by which the abdomen is opened.

5. To obtain sterility, some physicians merely bruise the ovaries, or ligate the oviduct, so that it can no longer communicate with the uterus.

6. Conversely, so that a living fetus can be brought forth by another route than that of the uterus, the Caesarean operation is available, namely, a longitudinal section of the abdomen; while by

7. Symphysiotomy the very space through which the fetus can emerge through the opening of the vagina is enlarged.

8. A part of the clitoris can sometimes be cut away with sufficient usefulness for diminishing libido.

VI. Observations. 1) To avoid the above-mentioned incisions by preventing conception, utero-ovarian amputation (the operation of Dr. Porro), or amputation of both ovaries, is often done; it is had without great hemorrhage or suppuration, and for that reason is said to be preferable to Caesarean section. But grave mutilation⁹ of the body is licit only (and indeed with the consent of the mother supposed) for preserving the life of the whole body, which therefore cannot otherwise be preserved, because the part itself is infected by disease and, from this very fact, even apart from pregnancy, brings danger to life; as with an arm and a foot. It is illicit if it is done in order never to conceive; indeed also, because evils are not to be done that goods may come about, in order to avoid the danger of a new pregnancy or of a new Caesarean section, the more so because a new pregnancy is doubtful and the danger is not yet imminent, and the Caesarean operation is not most grave, especially in a woman who has already undergone it, and this operation is as grave as Caesarean section.

⁹ Mutilation is grave not only by reason of danger or of the dimension of the member, but also by reason of function, e.g., if it deprives one of a power or function of great importance.

2. Oophorectomy, or ovosection (doorsnijding der eileiders), i.e., resection or ligation of the tubes of the oviduct, or of the canal leading from the ovary to the womb and carrying the maternal ovule to it, is gravely illicit for the same reason, as being a grave mutilation, except in the sole case in which the part labors under grave disease and constitutes a danger to life.

3. The same must be said of vasectomy¹⁰ in the man, or resection of the vessels or canals carrying the seed to the seminal vesicles (doorsnijding der zaadleiders), by which the way to ejaculation is broken off for the seed. Namely, it is gravely illicit, as being a grave mutilation, unless by reason of health it would be necessary for the good of the body, e.g., if a part of the deferent canal were infected with gangrene; whence it is not licit for obtaining sterility or impotence, even if perhaps the integrity of the canal and the power of inseminating could be restored, as some affirm, although in practice it is difficult; likewise, it is not licit for avoiding the multiplication of offspring or a dangerous birth, indeed not even for healing a great vicious inclination of lust: for the member, by its own nature, is immediately subordinated only to the good of the body, not to the good of the soul.

¹⁰ Concerning vasectomy, Nouvelle Revue Theologique 1910, p. 420; Revue Ecclesiastique de Liege, VI, 1910, p. 203; and Collationes Brugenses, XVII, 1912, p. 533, can usefully be read.

But public authority, since it does not have direct dominion over the life, liberty, and members of subjects, cannot take these away from them, and therefore cannot impose vasectomy upon innocent citizens, even the sick; to punish criminals in this way is incongruous, since it is not a suitable punishment, because the operation is little painful; finally, to use this means lest they harm others or lest, by entering marriage, they transmit disease by heredity, is not licit, because an evil means is not to be used for a good end, and also because other means are not lacking by which provision can be made for these things, e.g., prohibition by law under penal sanction, confinement, or abstinence from marriage.

It can also be noted that marriage, in the case of perpetual vasectomy, contracted, is invalid because of the impediment of impotence; but if the potency can be restored, it would also have to be restored when the consort demands it, yet then the end intended by authority would no longer be obtained. Moreover, bodily good is not the greatest common good of society; to this also pertains preserving human dignity, to which every species of animal selection is repugnant.

4. Likewise it is illicit to use the so-called X-rays or Roentgen rays, which, directed more intensely and with a greater dose upon the ovaries or testicles, can produce sterility, yet not always efficaciously and with fruit. For this is to be judged a grave mutilation, since it deprives one of a function of greater importance.

I. Sterilization pertains to eugenic science.

Genetic science is the experimental science of hereditary transmission and variation among living things, namely, plants and animals, and of the laws which govern it; these laws have hitherto been uncertain.

Eugenics is the same science applied to human beings; this latter science is therefore less developed than the former.

The foundation of this science is investigation of the cell.

Eugenism etymologically means good birth. Eugenics intends a good race, a strong and robust people. It proposes to itself the end of rendering the human stock and species better and more robust, since at present there are several causes infecting it, especially certain diseases which continually increase to the great detriment of the family and civil society, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, mental diseases including dementia, alcoholism, morphinism, cocainism, and so forth, and many others. Several of these are transmitted by heredity, arise from a disturbed organic alteration, and are exceedingly frequent. Tuberculosis and syphilis bring the greater injuries upon society.

It is certainly licit to employ means for diminishing and extirpating them, provided that the means themselves are licit, not evil.

But several means which have been employed are illicit and evil. Some are indirect, which positive eugenics uses, such as the legal prohibition of every marriage with any such person, and the obligation of producing a medical certificate establishing health as an indispensable condition of marriage. Others are direct, which negative eugenics uses, such as sterilization, neo-Malthusianism, the procuring of abortion, and so forth.¹

¹ Hence Payen, Déontologie médicale, ch. XII, art. 4, §2, establishes the following concerning false eugenism: False eugenism prevents marriage by the obligatory prenuptial certificate, upon which legal authorization is made dependent; it prevents conception by neo-Malthusianism and sterilization; it prevents birth by abortion; it prevents life by infanticide, before which certain persons do not draw back after birth; it prevents survival in society by the rejection of laws protecting the weak, which, however, it regards as inhuman and cruel.

In what follows we shall speak of sterilization.

II. Sterilization (onvruchtbaarmaking) signifies an action or operation which renders something sterile, so that it produces no fruit, for example, the action of preventing fermentation. Thus they speak of sterilization of a liquid, such as milk.

In biology, it is an action by which a living being is rendered infertile or incapable of reproduction. In physiology, it is an action which deprives a human being, male or female, of the possibility of procreation, or renders that person incapable of generation.

Sterility is distinguished as twofold: one is mere sterility or solely the incapacity to generate; the other arises from incapacity to perform carnal intercourse apt for generation. The former is called by theologians and canonists simply sterility or impossibility of generating; the latter is not customarily called sterility, but impotence, because it includes impotence to have intercourse, which, if perpetual, is a diriment impediment to marriage.

Theologians understand this of intercourse considered physiologically, or of an action of itself apt for generation, whereby the seed of the man is deposited in the due vessel or in the vagina of the woman. But physicians often consider the matter merely physically, namely, the mere physical possibility of copulation, whether seed is deposited or not. Hence a man who can perform intercourse, although he does not emit seed and cannot emit it, is not impotent for physicians. For theologians, however, he is truly impotent, indeed by natural law, so that if this condition is perpetual, he cannot enter marriage.²

² Physicians do not thereby deny the doctrine of theologians, but use a different terminology.

III. There are various manners of effecting sterilization.

1. Biological means can produce temporary sterilization in the woman. Thus:

a. by injection of a certain element of semen, for example, hormones especially of a ram, which acts after the manner of a vaccination rendering her immune for a period of six to eight and one-half months; but perhaps the time could be increased by repeated injections;

b. likewise by injection of an extract from the ovaries, placenta, or fetus.

Similarly, by injection of an anaphrodisiac substance, sterility or impotence can perhaps be obtained in the man, but only for a time.

2. Physical means likewise. By the so-called X-rays or Roentgen rays, or by rays produced from radium and directed upon the testicles of the man or ovaries of the woman, temporary or perpetual sterility can arise according to the dose. Thus genital activity is destroyed or atrophy of the testicles and ovaries is procured. But the means is not always infallibly certain. With a weak dose, there is rather a stimulation to ovulation.

Other physical means are painful and uncertain.

3. Surgical means especially:³

³ Cf. Muret, De la stérilisation sexuelle.

A. In the man there are:

a. castration, or removal or extirpation of the two testicles; but its effect is injurious to the organism, namely, it injures health and the virile character because of the absence of the internal secretion of hormones;

b. vasectomy, or the ligation or resection of the two vasa deferentia, that is, the canals which carry sperm or seed from the testicles into the penis, so that the seed cannot be ejaculated. The operation is very simple, not painful, dangerous, or injurious; it lasts five to ten minutes, so that the man can return to ordinary work almost immediately or already on the following day. Nor does it modify the virile character or sexual appetite, for the man retains perfect seed, but cannot ejaculate it.

It is disputed whether a remedy can be applied to the cutting or resection and communication through the vasa deferentia restored, at least in certain circumstances. Nevertheless, no example is known in which the possibility of generation has been restored to a man.

B. In the woman:

a. ovariotomy or hysterectomy, that is, removal of the two ovaries or the uterus, which is performed by the natural way through the vagina (colpotomy), or through the abdomen (laparotomy), in which latter case it brings some danger. Its effects are injurious and it changes the character of the woman; but it injures less than castration does in the man;

b. fallectomy or salpingectomy, that is, ligation or resection of the oviducts, or the two tubes which provide communication between the ovaries and the uterus; by this the ovum is prevented from descending into the uterus and the male seed from reaching and fertilizing it. It includes some danger and can be performed in eight different ways. Nevertheless, it is not always an infallibly certain means; the more efficacious manner is cutting between two ligatures;

c. inclusion of the uterus or its isolation; but this does not provide an always certain means.

Can sterilization be removed and the power of generating restored to the woman, in a case in which the ovaries have not been removed? Response. Communication between the ovaries and the uterus can sometimes be restored if there was a simple resection of the tubes or inclusion of the uterus; four cases, namely, are reported.

In modern times castration has come little into use; but ovariotomy for women was often in use toward the end of the nineteenth century. In our days only vasectomy and fallectomy are customarily performed.

Sterilization, therefore, is an action by which a genital organ is removed or substantially injured, or by which the passage of an essential element, namely, the seed or the ovum, into the due place in which conception is possible is impeded.

IV. The importance of the question is evident from the fact that not only do certain individuals employ sterilization by private counsel, but in certain States the civil power has introduced it by law or even rendered it obligatory.⁴

⁴ The following can be consulted: Davis, State Sterilisation of the Unfit; Landmann, Human Sterilisation; Nisot, La question eugénique dans les divers pays.

This did not originate in Germany; it has already existed for forty years. In the year 1897, a law was proposed in the American State of Michigan, but was not admitted. In 1905, Pennsylvania adopted a law, but it was not sanctioned by the authority of the State. In 1907, a law was enacted in Indiana, and thereafter in many federated States of America. Today, of forty-eight, twenty-seven have a law concerning sterilization.⁵ In the Dominion of Canada also, two provinces, namely, Alberta (1928) and British Columbia (1933), have a law.

⁵ They are: Indiana, Washington, California, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Alabama, Montana, Delaware, Virginia, Idaho, Utah, Minnesota, Maine, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arizona, Vermont, and Oklahoma. Namely, thirty States; but in two, namely, Nevada and New Jersey, the law is not applied, and in New York it was abrogated in 1920.

In Europe, besides Germany, the Swiss canton of Vaud (Waadt) and Denmark introduced a law in 1929; recently Sweden and Norway also did so in 1934, and finally Finland in 1936. A law was proposed in Great Britain; and a certain tendency toward proposing one can be observed in Czechoslovakia and Spain.

S. Th., Suppl., q. 41, a. 2; II-II, q. 152, a. 2, ad 1; c. Gent. III, 136.

756. State of the question. - Several have said:

1. that matrimony is obligatory for all capable persons. Thus certain men in the time of St. Thomas, whom he refuted by writing against those who attack perpetual continence; but in modern times certain non-Catholics, such as Platen, Nystrom, Voivenel;¹

¹ Platen, Le livre d'or de la sante; Nystrom, Das Geschlechtsleben und seine Gesetze; Voivenel, La castidad perversa.

2. the Scholastics, after Peter Lombard and St. Thomas, said quite generally that the precept of matrimony per se obliges the multitude, but not individuals except accidentally: thus Durandus, Paludanus, Soto, Ledesma, Viguerius, Henriquez, Sanchez, Lud. Lopez, Vivaldus Candelabro, Vega, and generally the Thomists;

3. on the contrary others say that there is no precept of matrimony, neither for the multitude, nor for individuals; except accidentally, in those circumstances in which it would be necessary for the preservation of the human race, as they readily understood in the beginning of creation, and perhaps it would still be so if otherwise the human race would perish.² Thus more recently Palmieri, and after him Gasparri, De Matrimonio, n. 14: "A true precept with obligation which affects the species and no individual cannot even be understood... This obligation is not demonstrated... God obtains his end through natural inclination without a precept." And many moderns hold this, such as Wernz, Noldin, Cappello, at least as more probable, because such a precept is superfluous and inefficacious.

² Not all admit this: St. Bonaventure, in IV, d. 26, a. 1, q. 3, and Durandus, ib., a. 3, q. 3, say that the precept ceased, the human race having been multiplied.

757. Principle I. There is some natural precept of matrimony, or matrimony falls in some sense under a natural precept.

It is proved from Billuart, diss. 1, a. 2, § 2: "A means especially necessary for the end intended by nature falls under a precept of nature. But matrimony is especially necessary for the end intended by nature, namely, for the due and congruous preservation of the species, as has been said. Therefore matrimony falls under a precept of nature. - Nor is the case similar with other animals to which no precept is given, but natural inclination suffices for the preservation of the species, both because they are incapable of precept, and because man, notwithstanding natural inclination, still remains free to assent to it or dissent from it."

Appositely St. Thomas, in II-II, q. 152, a. 2, ad 1:

"A precept has the character of something owed. But something is owed in two ways: in one way so that it be fulfilled by one person, and this owed thing cannot be passed over without sin; but another thing is owed to be rendered by the multitude, and not each one of the multitude is bound to fulfill such a debt: for many things are necessary to the multitude, for the fulfillment of which one person does not suffice, but they are fulfilled by the multitude, while one does this, another that. Therefore the precept of the law of nature given to man concerning eating must be fulfilled by each one; otherwise the individual could not be preserved. But the precept given concerning generation regards the multitude of men, to whom it is necessary not only that it be multiplied corporally, but also that it advance spiritually. And therefore provision is sufficiently made for the human multitude if certain persons devote work to carnal generation; but others, abstaining from this, devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things for the beauty and salvation of the whole human race: just as also in an army certain men guard the camp, certain men bear the standards, certain men fight with swords, which nevertheless are all owed to the multitude, but cannot be fulfilled by one man."

758. Principle II. The precept of matrimony per se and directly does not oblige individual persons, except perhaps in the case in which a scarcity of men would require that each one attend to generation. - It is certain.

The reason is that the precept is not referred to the singular and proper perfection of the individual: for generation is not of the necessity of the individual, but of the necessity of the species and community; but for this it is not required that individuals marry, indeed it is not even possible that it fittingly be done in this way, since provision must also be made for other things necessary to the community.

It is said: a) per se and directly, for accidentally someone can be bound by reason of a peculiar condition, for example, if otherwise he cannot observe continence, or does not will to employ the means of observing it; likewise to repair an injury, or to legitimate offspring, or to fulfill a promise, to reconcile peace between princes, or a prince to avoid civil war, or to preserve the Catholic faith in a region, etc.

b) except perhaps in the case in which a scarcity of men would require it; because just as in a case of necessity each one can be bound to the defense of the republic, so also to the preservation of the species, which is no less necessary.

It is proved from St. Thomas, c. Gent. III, 136: Those things which are necessary to each one must necessarily and obligatorily be used by individuals, for example, food and drink; but those things which are necessary to the multitude, it is not necessary that each one procure, indeed it is not possible. But generation is not of the necessity of the individual, but of the necessity of the species. Therefore it is not necessary or obligatory that all men attend to acts for generation. For:

a) Many things are necessary to the multitude of men, as are food, drink, clothing, a house, and other things, which it is impossible to be procured by one man, both because there are diverse aptitudes, and because diverse activities exclude one another.

b) Therefore, just as in the body diverse members are ordered to diverse things, so in society there must be diverse offices, nor is it necessary that all be farmers, builders, or soldiers.

c) Thus it is not necessary that all attend to generation, especially since on account of a good more necessary or more perfect they can abstain, as on account of military service and the defense of the fatherland, or on account of contemplation, which also concurs for the good of society.

d) Indeed many are in conditions in which they could not fittingly devote themselves to the generation and education of offspring.

Nor does it stand in the way that the inclination to matrimony is natural. For, as St. Thomas says, in Suppl., q. 41, a. 2: "Nature inclines to something in two ways: In one way as to that which is necessary for the perfection of one person, and such an inclination obliges each one, because natural perfections are common to all. In another way it inclines to something which is necessary for the perfection of the multitude; and since there are many things of this kind, one of which impedes another, from such an inclination not every man is obliged by way of precept, otherwise every man would be obliged to agriculture and building, and to offices of this kind which are necessary to the human community; but satisfaction is made to the inclination of nature when through diverse persons diverse things of those named are completed. Since, therefore, it is necessary for the perfection of the human multitude that some serve the contemplative life, which is especially impeded by matrimony, the inclination of nature to matrimony does not oblige by way of precept, even according to the philosophers. Whence Theophrastus proves that it is not expedient for the wise man to marry." Hence the Apostle says, I Cor. VII, 38: "He who does not join his virgin in matrimony does better," namely, than he who does join her.

759. They object: 1. Nature has endowed the individual with organs destined for generation. Not to use organs given by nature is against the order of nature, which requires the function of the organ, since it has given nothing useless, nor is it man's part to emend it. Therefore not to use the organs destined for generation is against the very order of nature.

Resp. I distinguish the major: Nature has endowed the individual with organs destined for generation, for the good of the species, I concede; for the good of the individual, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor: not to use organs destined for the necessity and good of the individual is against the order of nature, I concede; destined for the necessity and good of the species, I deny. Cf. Gent. III, 136, ad 2.

2. Every appetite is a necessity of nature to which satisfaction must be given, as, for example, the appetite for food, drink, etc. Every individual feels the appetite of sexual concupiscence. Therefore as satisfaction must be given to the appetite of hunger and thirst, so it must be given to the sexual appetite.

Resp. I distinguish the major: satisfaction must be given to an appetite which indicates the necessity of the individual, I concede; which indicates the necessity of the species, I subdistinguish: by some persons in the community, I concede; by all, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor: Everyone feels the appetite of sexual concupiscence, which is ordered to the necessity of the species, I concede; which is ordered to the necessity of the individual, I deny. I distinguish the consequence: therefore satisfaction must be given to the sexual appetite by some, I concede; by all, I deny. Cf. II-II, q. 152, a. 2, ad 1.

3. It is a physiological law that every organ, in order that it may remain healthy and robust, requires normal and moderate exercise, without the excess of abuse, and without the defect of inertia; otherwise it incurs debility and atrophy. Therefore the genital organ also must be used moderately.

Resp. I deny, because the faculty of generating does not cease through non-use. For the genital organ is not subject to atrophy. And semen, which does not serve the ends of matrimony, increases the vigor of the individual, because it is reabsorbed partly in such a way that it is available for the good of the other organs. This physicians also affirm.³

³ Cf. Eschbach, Disputationes physiologico-theologicae; Gemelli, Non moechaberis; Fere, L'instinct sexuel; Moll, Handbuch der Sexual Wissenschaften; Forel, Die sexuelle Frage; La question sexuelle.

760. Principle III. The precept of matrimony per se and directly is imposed upon the multitude or community of the human race, whose part it is to have care for the sufficient preservation of itself; so that individuals are obliged, if it is necessary for the preservation of the human race. This God himself declared, Gen. I, 28: "Increase and multiply...," the reason for which is added, because "he created them male and female."

It is proved: 1. A precept of matrimony is given, as was said n. 757; it does not per se and directly oblige individuals in particular; therefore it obliges the multitude, all in common.

2. A precept has the character of a debt to be fulfilled by a rational creature. It is a debt to be fulfilled by the multitude that the human race be propagated and preserved. Therefore this is prescribed to it, and it is law: for it is an ordination of reason to the common good, promulgated by him who has care of the community, through the mediation of human reason.

It is confirmed: a) that precept was given to all at the beginning of the human race,

b) nor was it revoked when the necessity ceased: for a natural precept is not extinguished when the necessity ceases, although for that time it does not oblige, as is clear of the precept of almsgiving.

The opposition of the adversaries seems to arise from this, that they do not rightly conceive the natural law, or they fashion it as too similar to positive law, although it is nothing other than the inclination of rational nature itself, to be known by reason and enunciated by the dictate of reason (I, n. 246).

Thus, for example, they object:

1. An obligation which affects the species and no individual person cannot even be understood. - Resp.: let it pass, but it affects individual persons in common: for it affects nature, not in the abstract but in the concrete, and therefore it affects all who possess the nature.

2. Once the inclination of the human race to matrimony is posited, law is superfluous; indeed, it is inefficacious because it obliges no one in particular. - Resp.: the inclination of nature itself to matrimony in a rational being is natural law; another positive law is superfluous, let it pass. But the inclination of nature itself is not inefficacious, and it obliges all, not distributively but collectively.

3. What touches all presses no one. A precept which obliges the multitude will be neglected by most. Therefore it is useless and insufficient. - Resp. I distinguish: if it concerns a mere burden, I concede; if it concerns a work to which nature inclines, I deny.

4. A precept altogether indeterminate as to mode, time, age, persons, is repugnant, since it is inefficacious. - Resp.: an indeterminate positive precept as to circumstances is repugnant, I concede; an indeterminate natural precept is repugnant, I deny. Many natural precepts are indeterminate: God is to be worshiped, justice is to be observed, contracts are to be entered justly, etc. For natural law is of itself indeterminate; and therefore positive law is necessary for determining the natural law⁴ (I, n. 263).

⁴ Recently Fr. Agapito Martin de Sobradillo, O.M.C., in the work La Procreation et la Sterilisation, objects three things:

1. An obligation which first belongs to individuals, then to society, then to individuals if there were necessity, is understood with difficulty. - Resp.: It always affects all collectively in the same way; the difference is of application from circumstances.

2. The multitude as such does not have offices, but individuals do: either all are obliged, and this is false; or if others abstain, and in the case it suffices to say that then there is an obligation in these circumstances. - Resp.: Then the obligation is applied, because the general law is that care be taken for the preservation of the species.

3. Society cannot generate, but the individual can. Therefore society itself is not the subject of the obligation of generating. - Resp.: Not society as such is the subject, but all collectively.

761. Observation. - In practice it does not matter whether it is said that a properly so-called precept is imposed upon the multitude, or whether this is denied, since by the inclination of nature implanted in individuals, together with divine providence, sufficient provision is made for the preservation of the human race.

Eugenics, the science of good breeding, is the youngest of all the sciences, but she already displays considerable vigor and she has a very high estimate of her own importance for the welfare of mankind. The late Sir Francis Galton put Eugenics on a scientific basis and gave it its name. In 1904 he founded the Francis Galton Laboratory in the University of London for the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. By his will he left a considerable portion of his wealth to this institution. The Eugenics Education Society was founded in London in the year 1908 with the object of rousing public opinion to a sense of the importance of the subject, and spreading knowledge, and providing teaching on it among the people. This Society publishes a quarterly Review.

Eugenics builds on the facts of heredity. Together with a tendency to slight variation, offspring in general display the qualities of their parents. This fact has, of course, been known for ages, and breeders of animals and growers of plants have taken advantage of it to improve their stock. Man is subject to the phenomena of heredity as well as animals and plants, and eugenists propose to make use of the old and new knowledge which modern science has gained and will continue to gain on the facts of heredity in order to improve the breed of men. The conviction which has been gaining ground for some years past that at present in England the worse stocks are increasing faster than the better stocks of the population gives actuality and urgency to the proposal. It is pointed out that in former times pestilence, famine, war, and generally harder conditions of life eliminated the weaker and the unfit. Nowadays medical science and the amenities of modern civilization preserve many who would not have survived in ruder circumstances. Weaklings in body and mind not only survive in greater numbers under modern conditions, but they multiply more rapidly than the sounder stocks. The number of the insane, neurotic, feeble-minded, sickly, unhealthy, degenerates, and undesirables is steadily increasing, and threatens to poison the life of the nation. Many causes seem to be working in the same direction. The higher and better classes marry later, as a rule have fewer children, and many of the more enterprising emigrate to other lands, where there is a better opening for their energy and ability. The poor are more improvident. They marry earlier, have larger families, the mother often works in the factory and cannot suckle her babies or look after her children; even when they are healthy themselves they frequently intermarry with vitiated stocks. The strain of modern competition and the unhealthy environment furnished by our large centers of industry tell with deadly effect on our laboring population, the great bulk of the nation. The daily constant

grind wears down the strongest constitutions, and destroys their physique and nerve power. Probably more disastrous than all other causes is the general absence of religion with its controlling, soothing, and vivifying influence. After all, the worst enemies of bodily, mental, and spiritual health are neither inherited defect, nor insanitary environment, nor the grinding wear and tear of competitive industry; but drink, gluttony, lust, pride, avarice, and the other unbridled passions of poor human nature. At any rate the Christian religion exercises a very powerful controlling influence over these passions, and helps a man to keep them in subjection to reason. Religion, too, soothes and recreates as nothing else can do; it calms the mind, and tends to prevent useless fretting and discontent. The general decay of religion robs men of all these salutary influences, and nothing can be found to take its place. The effect of these and other causes on the physical and mental health of the nation is nothing less than appalling. For confirmation of this we need not go to alarmists. It will be sufficient to quote the sober and deliberate judgments of one or two scientists of standing on the crisis which has arisen in the national life. Professor J. A. Thomson writes: “We have to face a more difficult problem when we consider the multiplication of the relatively unfit. It is, we suppose, true that these have now a better chance to survive and multiply than at any other epoch in the history of our race. Especially perhaps in Britain do the weeds tend to increase more rapidly than the flowers. It is impossible to ignore the seriousness of the outlook.

If, as Professor Karl Pearson points out, 25 per cent. of the married couples in Britain produce 50 per cent. of the next generation, how much depends on the character of that 25 per cent. From the most diverse regions we have reports of the alarming increase of what not even the most optimistic can regard as other than undesirables. In a fine climate and in a period of cheap food and high wages, the ratio of defectives — including deaf and dumb, lunatics, epileptics, paralytics, crippled and deformed, debilitated and infirm — is said to have increased from 5.4 per 1,000 above 15 years in 1874 to 11.6 in 1896. Particular statistics, such as these, may be open to criticisms, but there are scores of similar statistics from almost every civilized country and there is no escape from the general result. As Emerson said, we are breeding men with too much guano in their composition.”¹

¹ Heredity, p. 528.

In his lecture on The scope and importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics [1909], Professor K. Pearson says: “A clean body, a sound if slow mind, a vigorous and healthy stock, a numerous progeny, these factors were largely representative of the typical Englishman of the past; and we see to-day that one and all these characteristics can be defended on scientific grounds; they are the essentials of an imperial race. ... We reach the state of affairs which Mr. Sydney Webb tells us is demonstrable in another intellectual circle in this country, an almost childless population with no inheritance of its ability. And against this we have to set the maximum fertility which is reached by the degenerate stocks! . . . The progress of the race inevitably demands a dominant fertility in the fitter stocks. If that principle be not recognized as axiomatic by the mentally and bodily fit themselves, if the statesman does not accept it as a guide in social legislation, then the race will degenerate, until, sinking into barbarism, it may rise again through the toilsome stages of purification by crude natural selection. I am not pessimistic in this attitude. I know that the English people has been aroused to self-consciousness more than once in its history, and I believe that now it can be brought to realize that safety lies in a conscious race-culture. . . . On the one hand I do not raise an alarmist picture of our coming decadence, nor on the other hand would I leave you without insisting that there is grave occasion for earnest thought.”²

² Op. cit., pp. 41-45.

It is obvious that Eugenics is a subject of interest to Moral Theology, and that the two sciences touch at several points. We shall not then be justly accused of meddling in what does not concern us, if we inquire into the attitude which theology should adopt towards the newcomer. We have no wish to provoke another conflict between science and religion, but, as the eugenists allow, this is a matter which specially concerns the moralist and the theologian. Indeed if any conflict takes place, it will not be the theologian who has provoked it. The theologian has reason to complain that some eugenists have gone out of their way to deliver a gratuitous assault on what is dear to theology. Thus, Professor W. Bateson, in his inaugural lecture on The Methods and Scope of Genetics, 23rd October, 1908, said: ‘The blundering cruelty we call criminal justice will stand forth divested of natural sanction, a relic of the ferocious inventions of the savage. Well may such justice be portrayed as blind. Who shall say whether it is crime or punishment which has wrought the greater suffering in the world? We may live to know that to the keen satirical vision of Sam Butler on the pleasant mountains of Erewhon there was revealed a dispensation, not kinder only, but wiser than the terrific code which Moses delivered from the flames of Sinai.”³ The Eugenics Review, November, 1910, p. 169, had the following: “A considerable proportion of criminals are known to be feeble-minded, and a considerably larger proportion of criminals are driven into crime by hereditary tendencies; possibly the rest are made by a defective education. Individual responsibility is thus in great part mythical; the self-protective interest of society would be better served if those possessing definite criminal tendencies were subjected to kindly but permanent detention, and in this manner prevented from bringing into the world others like themselves.” Professor K. Pearson writes: “Our highly-developed human sympathy will no longer allow us to watch the State purify itself by aid of crude natural selection. We see pain and suffering only to relieve it, without inquiry as to the moral character of the sufferer or as to his national or racial value. And this is right— no man is

³ Loc. cit., p. 35.

responsible for his own being; and nature and nurture, over which he had no control, have made him the being he is, good or evil.”⁴

⁴ The Scope of National Eugenics, p. 37.

The doctrine that the thief and the murderer are not responsible for their crimes, that in committing them they were not free but necessarily determined by physical forces just like the earthquake, is a most comfortable doctrine for the criminal classes, and one which they are not slow to apply in practice, as the statistics of increasing crime show. Only, the doctrine is not scientific, nor does it make for the improvement of the race. We protest then, in the name of science and morals, against necessitarianism being made the basis of Eugenics.

Sir Francis Galton claimed that as Eugenics strengthens the sense of social duty in so many important particulars, it should find a welcome home in every tolerant religion. He looked forward to the time when it would be accepted as a quasi-religion.⁵ Professor K. Pearson complains that he has not noticed that this first principle of duty to the race, of national morality, has been fully insisted on by our ethical writers.⁶ But he, too, looks forward to the time when Eugenics will have become “a creed of action.” He quotes with approval words of Sir F. Galton: “ Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to future generations, it renders its actions more pervading than hitherto, by dealing with families and societies in their entirety, and it enforces the importance of the marriage covenant by directing serious attention to the probable quality of the future offspring. ... In brief, Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature.”⁷

⁵ Essays in Eugenics, pp. 68, 108.

⁶ The Scope of National Eugenics, p. 41.

⁷ Op. cit., p. 45.

In reply to this we may say that the scope and object of Eugenics are truly admirable, and that they already form an important element in the Christian religion. Christianity has always insisted on the virtue of Charity, which obliges us to love not only God, but our neighbor as ourselves. Catholic theologians with one accord have followed St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in interpreting “ our neighbor” as comprising all rational creatures who are capable of happiness with God, all who are loved by Him. Charity embraces the whole, mighty family of God, our Father, future generations, as well as the present and past. The object of Eugenics, then, the physical and mental good and improvement of the race of mankind, is part of the object of Charity, the chief and the noblest of the Christian virtues. If the spiritual good of mankind be added to the list of objects, the end of Eugenics would be identical with that for which the Catholic Church exists and works. Eugenics in this sense is already a dogma of faith and a creed of action for every true Christian. However, theology teaches that true Charity is well-ordered. It looks with suspicion on eloquent professions of love for mankind in general, especially when they come from men whose words and actions are full of hatred and malice for the particular specimens of mankind that they come across in everyday life. So, in the same way, although theology must approve of general love for future generations, still it cannot allow the certain good of the present generation to be sacrificed for the sake of the problematical benefit of future generations. This may explain partially why Christian ethics has not stressed our duty of love for the men of the future. They do not as yet exist, they are not as yet in misery and want, perhaps they never will be. Our obligation of loving them will be satisfied by wishing them well, and not doing anything to injure them. The best way to avoid injuring them will be to show charity to the specimens of humanity who are already in misery and want, and to abstain carefully from injuring them. While then theology is quite at one with Eugenics as to the end to be aimed at, it very cautiously scrutinizes the means proposed for the attainment of that end.

The most drastic remedy for the danger of degeneration that threatens the nation has been proposed by Dr. R. R. Rentoul, of Liverpool. In 1903 he published a book on the Proposed Sterilization of certain Mental and Physical Degenerates, and a second, enlarged edition, appeared in 1906 under the title — Race Culture: or Race Suicide? His aim was effectually to prevent degenerates from propagating their kind, and for this purpose he advocated the surgical operations of vasectomy and fallectomy. ‘The operation consists in excising and ligaturing the divided ends of, in the male, the vasa deferentia, or spermatic cords, and in the female, the fallopian tubes.”⁸ Voluntary sterilization was to be permitted in the case of women with deformed pelvis, or diseased wombs, in the case of those who suffered from insanity when pregnant or after childbirth, and in the case of both men and women who suffered from any incurable diseases of the lungs or other chief organ. Compulsory sterilization was to be applied to “ all idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, epileptics, lunatics, deaf-mutes, defective and backward children, habitual inebriates, habitual vagrants, public prostitutes, many sexual perverts, and markedly neurotic persons. To all these we must say: You may marry if you wish — we do not advise you; you may have sexual intercourse — we cannot prevent you; you are jerry empire builders, and a grave danger to the nation, and so we cannot and will not permit you to hand down your degeneracy to inoffensive and harmless children, or to add to the sum-total of human parasites, who, by loading the already overtaxed taxpayer, prevents him from marrying, or drives him to restrict the increase of his family.”⁹ It is obvious that there would be grave danger of making mistakes, especially with regard to backward children, and doing irreparable injury to those who otherwise might have become very healthy stock. To prevent such mistakes and possible abuse, Dr. Rentoul suggests that: “No person should perform the operation of sterilization for the purpose of preventing the begetting of degenerates, without the official permission of the Lunacy Commissioners of England, Scotland, or Ireland; and the Commissioners should inquire into the

⁸ Race Culture, or Race Suicide? p. 144.

⁹ Race Culture, or Race Suicide? p. 145.

history of the person to be operated upon, and take any other steps they consider necessary. No person should operate except those specially appointed by the Commissioners;” besides other recommendations.¹⁰

¹⁰ Op. cit., p. 146.

This proposal has been discussed from the moral point of view in several of the theological magazines of Europe and America. One or two American writers have maintained the lawfulness of the operation, but all the rest that I have seen are against it. There is some conflict of expert opinion about the physical effects and consequences of the operation, but even if we admit Dr. Rentoul’s contention that if properly performed no external deformity or other evil effects of any sort follow from it, yet physiologically and morally the operation is a serious mutilation of the human body in a most important organ. Such a mutilation can only be allowed when it is necessary in order to save the whole body, or by public authority in punishment for rime, as theologians commonly teach with St. Thomas. We must, then, according to the common opinion, pronounce against the lawfulness of the Rentoul operation. Of course there would be a further difficulty from the moral point of view against the marriage or the use of marriage by males who had undergone the operation. Morally they would be eunuchs, whom Sixtus V. declared to be incapable of marrying or of using marital rights.¹¹ With regard to women who had undergone fallectomy, the question of impotence is not so clear. Adhuc sub judice lis est.

¹¹ Constitution, Cum frequenter,

22 June, 1587.

We must point out a flaw in an argument which Dr. Rentoul frequently employs in support of his proposal. “ We cannot and will not permit you,’ he says, “to hand down your degeneracy to inoffensive and harmless children.” On p. 2 he writes: “My simple contention is . . . that no person, sane or insane, has the right to punish an innocent child by inflicting it with any bodily or mental disease, so that it either dies prematurely or is a mental or physical cripple. Such punishing is murder — murder of life, murder of health, murder of success, and murder of everything worth having.” On p. 9: “We shall have compassion upon you and the coming race. We shall prevent you from begetting more degenerates. We shall form ourselves into a real society for the prevention of cruelty to children.”

It is obvious that there is a fallacy here. The alternative does not lie between the same person begetting healthy and unhealthy children. There is no question of preserving future children that are destined to be born from bodily or mental taint. The alternative is clearly between existence and non-existence of the children. The sterilized have no children ; if they had not been sterilized they might have had children, and some of these might have inherited the parental taint. But to exist even with a taint is better than not to exist at all. Materialists and those who confine themselves to the consideration of the present life may dispute or deny this proposition, but for a Christian who believes that at best this life is only a preparation for a future eternity of happiness, the proposition cannot admit of doubt. Not only are degenerates as capable as the most robust and healthy of attaining the true end of human existence, but in many respects they are more fitted to attain it. The calendar of Christian saints would be much shorter, nay, it would be robbed of some of its most glorious names, if all the degenerates were to be removed from it. But even if we confine our attention to the present life, is it so certain that it would be better for being deprived of its degenerates? Is it not true that the cripple and the otherwise unfit are often the sunny spot in the life of the family? Often enough their very weakness and unfitness call forth all the capacities for the purest and sweetest affection in those around them. If we had not the unfit, we should miss some of the noblest and most beautiful traits that human nature can show. No, although bouncing health is a great blessing, and I by no means desire the production or multiplication of the degenerate, still, if we take a wider view of life, we shall have to confess that both this world and the next would be the poorer if it were not for some degenerates.

The moralist would find less difficulty in admitting the power of the State to inflict sterilization as a penalty for crime. In Catholic times, a still more severe punishment was the legal penalty for rape in England, as Bracton informs us.

“Which crime, if it is proved, is followed by punishment, namely the loss of members, so that there may be member for member, because when a virgin is corrupted she loses a member; and therefore the corrupter is to be punished in that wherein he offended: therefore let him lose his eyes because of the sight of the beauty by which he lusted after the virgin, and let him also lose his testicles, which aroused the heat of debauchery.”¹²

¹² De Legibus Anglic, lib, ili. tract. 2, c. 28.

Professor Schmitt, in the Innsbruck Zeitschrift for January, 1911, will not countenance the infliction of vasectomy as a punishment for crime. Mutilation is not in keeping with modern humanitarian ideas, and the painlessness of the operation makes it unfit to be used as a deterrent. However this may be, there does not seem to be any grave moral objection to such a use of vasectomy or fallectomy, if the State so decreed.

Dr. Rentoul’s proposal has met with a certain amount of support from the non-theological world. Boards of Guardians have discussed it, but the more cautious and authoritative among eugenists themselves tell us that it would not be safe to practise such methods for preventing degeneracy in the present state of knowledge on the subject. According to a writer in the Times, March 2, 1911, such measures “have never commended themselves to the public conscience. In America they have been tried and found wanting. The same end is attained by lifelong detention.” Professor J. A. Thomson writes of it in this strain: “Some have taken up an extreme laissez-faire position, which, as human society is constituted, is quite untenable. . . . Others, going to the opposite extreme, have advocated what may be called surgical methods for both sexes to a degree that is more than spartan.” 18 The same writer protests on the following page against those who “do not hesitate to suggest methods of surgical elimination to an extent that is almost grotesque.”

We may then conclude that neither morality nor science approves of the sterilization of the degenerate in order to prevent them from propagating their kind. We are glad to associate ourselves with Dr. Rentoul in his uncompromising condemnation of medical abortion when used for the same purpose, as some medical authorities have proposed.¹⁴

¹⁴ Op. cit., p. 170.

Apart from the employment of surgical operations, such as have been mentioned, as far as I can see moral theology would have no insuperable difficulty in allowing other means which have been proposed by eugenists to improve the race and to remedy national degeneration. Many of them it would cordially approve. The two sciences are quite at one in their condemnation of race suicide by the artificial restriction of the number of children. If the teachings of moral theology on this subject and on matters connected with it were more insisted on and practised, there would perhaps be no need for other measures. Moral theology condemns not only race suicide, but the causes which have made it a national danger in our time. It condemns the cursed greed of gold which is at the root of the increasing difficulty in getting an honest livelihood for oneself and family. Business methods tend to oust justice and charity. It condemns the immoderate pursuit of pleasure and amusement which makes the modern woman unwilling to submit to the duties of motherhood. It condemns pride which leads people to live in a style above their means, and vie with their neighbors in foolish display and ostentation. It condemns the luxurious and artificial lives often led by the wealthy classes, which in all probability are the cause of their diminished fertility. In other words, moral theology insists on the duties imposed on men by the Christian religion, the decay of which is the prolific cause of all our troubles.

13 Heredity, p. 529.

In his Huxley Lecture, October 29, 1901, Sir Francis Galton suggested certain positive means for the improvement of the race. Young men and women might be examined eugenically, and diplomas might be granted to the healthy and the fit. Dowries might be allowed them to enable them to marry early and rear a numerous family. They should have healthy homes, honors should be bestowed on those who provide the nation with a healthy stock, and public opinion should be roused and guided so that it will condemn the marriage of the unfit and approve the marriage of the fit.

The moral theologian would have no professional objection to any of these proposals, whatever he might think of their practicability and efficacy. His science discourages the marriage of the unfit. If a man is incapable of looking after and providing for a family, he should not marry. If he does marry, he undertakes obligations which he cannot fulfil. Disease or crime detected in one of the parties to a promise of marriage gives the other party the right to break off the engagement. If one of the parties is aware that he labors under some hidden disease or defect which in the event of marriage will be hurtful to the other party, he is bound to make that defect known to the other before marriage and give him the opportunity of retiring from the engagement if he chooses. People laboring under infectious diseases are, of course, to be dissuaded from marrying while they are in that state. But as ecclesiastical law stands at present, such persons are not absolutely prohibited from marrying one who knows of the disease and who is willing to take the risks. The Church has always considered that those who wish to marry and have not voluntarily renounced it, have a strict right to do so, and that neither she nor the State can interfere with that right except for the greatest reason. Thus she allowed lepers to marry even with the probability that if children were born they would inherit the parental taint. Theologians teach that the rule laid down for lepers may be applied to other infectious diseases. It is better, they say, to be born a leper, than not to be born at all.¹⁵ Without doubt, a chief reason for this teaching is the grave moral danger to souls which would be the consequence of enforced celibacy. After all, we must guard against not only bodily disease, but the far more terrible diseases of the soul. It is natural that the Christian theologian and the materialist should not be able to look at such questions in quite the same light. They differ radically in their estimate of values.

¹⁵ Wernz, Jus. decret., iv., n. 253 ff.

Many eugenists advocate the segregation or lifelong detention of degenerates. According to the Poor Law Number of the Eugenics Review for November, 1910: “In respect to any representative of undesirable stock, the principle states that the community will keep him alive, will give him sympathy, protection and kindly treatment, but that the interest of the future demands that he shall be denied the privilege of parenthood. The community may, if it likes, provide palaces for its paupers, feeble-minded, criminals and alcoholics, to induce them to forego their desire to be progenitors of their kind through all future generations, in complete assurance that it will be well repaid in a hundred years. A cheaper alternative method is enforced kindly detention. The right of the subject may be anything but the right to curse the future” (p. 171).

The moralist would find no difficulty in these proposals except perhaps in the last. Enforced detention or segregation would mean a virtual prohibition of marriage and its use to the degenerate. As was said above, this would be contrary to modern ecclesiastical law, but if it were shown to be for the common good, the Church might change her discipline on the point. She has made impediments of marriage for the common physical good of her children in the past, and she would not be slow in the future to sanction necessary or useful means to ensure the health of the community. Her past legislation affords several instructive parallels. Thus, in the old canon law, many crimes and transgressions were punished by forbidding the criminal to marry. Pirhing enumerates seven such crimes: becoming godparent of one’s own child in baptism, murder of a priest, solemn and public penance while it lasted, knowingly and sacrilegiously marrying a nun, wife murder, abduction of another’s bride, incest with a wife’s relations within the second degree.¹⁶ So that if it were shown to be for the common good that certain habitual criminals should be prevented from propagating their kind, I do not think that the Church would stand in the way of such an enactment.

¹⁶ Pirhing, Jus canon., lib. iv., tit. 16, n. 11.

What was formerly done with the approval of the Church in the case of lepers might again be done to all who labor under infectious diseases. They were segregated and inclosed in lazar-houses. Although the old canon law enjoined on the bishop the duty of exhorting the consort of a leper to follow him and minister to him with conjugal affection, yet there was no strict obligation to do so, and the ordinance was subsequently modified. Pirhing expressly notes that the custom of segregation was approved by the canon law, which allowed such lepers to have their own Church and priest.¹⁷

¹⁷ Ubé supra, n, 4.

We must not be in too great a hurry to introduce restrictive legislation of the kind suggested. Eugenists and students of heredity are by no means agreed as to whether acquired characters and diseases in general are transmitted to offspring by their parents. Much observation and study will be required before legislation can be proposed with safety. In the Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered before the University of Oxford, June 5, 1907, Sir Francis Galton uttered a warning against too great precipitation in this matter. He said: “Enough is already known to those who have studied the question to leave no doubt in their minds about the general results, but not enough is quantitatively known to justify legislation or other action except in extreme cases. Continued studies will be required for some time to come, and the pace must not be hurried.”