"41. Prenatal life is fully life at every stage of its development. It is owed therefore the same respect, the same protection, and the same care that are due to a human person...."
"42. The birth of a baby marks and important and significant moment in the development that began with conception...."
"43. When there is fear for the life of the newborn, health care worker...can administer baptism...."
"44....Man...is the only creature on earth that God 'willed for his own sake'; his whole being bears the image of the Creator....human life is sacred....every human being, from the very beginning, has the dignity and value proper to a person.105"
"45. Human life is at the same time, and irreducibly, corporeal and spiritual...."
"46. The body, the manifestation of the person, is not ethically indifferent, but rather has moral relevance.... The body has its own laws and values, which man must gradually discover, employ, and set in order. It is not possible to prescind from the body and set up subjective feelings and desires as the exclusive criterion and source of morality."
Human life inviolable and "indisposable"
"47....Every improper intervention on the body is an offense against the dignity of the person and therefore against God, who is the one, absolute Lord of it...."
"48. The fact that life belongs to God, and not to man, confers on it the sacred character that elicits an attitude of profound respect...."
"49....Technological possibilities must be measured by the standard of ethical responsibility, which determines their human compatibility or, in other words, whether they effectively safeguard and respect the dignity of the human person...."
"50....science must be an ally to wisdom.118"
Abortion and the destruction of nascent life
"51. The inviolability of the human person from the moment of conception forbids abortion...."
"52....The Church...calls health care workers to professional integrity, which tolerates no action that destroys life....Medical and health care integrity declares illegitimate any surgical or pharmaceutical intervention aimed at interrupting pregnancy at any stage."
"53....there are no exceptions to the moral norm that prohibits the direct destruction of an innocent human being.127"
"54....When abortion is neither intended nor willed but follows as a foreseen consequence of a therapeutic act that is inescapably necessary for the health of the mother, this may be morally legitimate...."
Embryo reduction
“55….’From the ethical point of view, embryo reduction is an intentional selective abortion. It is in fact the deliberate and direct elimination of one or more innocent human beings in the initial phase of their existence and as such it always constitutes a grave moral disorder.129”
Interception and contragestation
“56. There are several so-called interceptive methods [As per the footnote, “The most common interceptive methods are the intrauterine device (IUD) and the so-called morning-after Pill.] which, after conception has occurred, can prevent implantation….
the intention alone to prescribe and to employ these means for the purpose of preventing any embryo that may have been conceived from implanting in the uterus makes such acts abortive in a moral sense….
Contragestive methods, [As per the footnote, “The main methods of contragestation are the RU-486 pill, or mifepristone, prostaglandins, and methotrexate.] on the other hand, which cause the elimination of an already implanted embryo, always amount to direct abortion. ‘Therefore, the use of means of interception and contragestation fall within the sin of abortion and are gravely immoral.133"
- [Blogger’s Note: Like Dignitas Personae, the New Charter offers NO guidelines for supposed "moral" use of an interceptive or contragestative, which certainly appears to indicate the need for change at Catholic hospitals, regarding treatment of women identified as victims of sexual assault.
- As
per Fr. Juan Vélez, MD (an Opus Dei priest who also has a doctorate in
dogmatic theology) and Rebecca Peck, MD, ''there is no safe period to
give LNC-EC during a woman's cycle when it may be efficacious to prevent
pregnancy without significant likelihood that it will have an
abortifacient effect'' (The Postovulatory Mechanism of Action of Plan B, NCBC Quarterly, Winter 2013). Writing with Dr. Peck, we have certainly been alerted to abortifacient potential by
- Chris Kahlenborn, M.D. and Walter B. Severs, Ph.D., F.C.P. (Mechanism of action of levonorgestrel emergency contraception, Linacre Quarterly, February 2015; ), and
Ectopic pregnancies
"57....The woman may face a serious risk...while the embryo as a rule cannot survive. Here the applicable norm prohibits interventions to directly destroy the embryo, while it justifies interventions aimed exclusively at preserving the life and health of the woman that result in the embryo's demise."
Anencephalic fetuses
"58....It is not lawful to procure an abortion because the condition on anencephaly has been ascertained....Resuscitation of the infants for the sole purpose of maintaining their organs for procurement is not ethically justifiable, inasmuch as it is a form of exploitation that offends against their dignity as persons.134"
Conscientious objection
“59….When human law contradicts it, conscience affirms
its primary right and the primacy of God’s law….Heroism is sometimes called
for….”
“60….earnestly motivated conscientious objection has the
noble significance of a social denunciation of
a legal injustice….”
“61….‘A person who actually procures an abortion
incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.’ [footnote cites Canon
Law]
“62. Health
care workers have particular obligations toward aborted fetuses….if still
alive, must be baptized….[if] already dead deserves the respect owed to a human
corpse, and…suitable burial….”
Defending the right to life
Defending the right to life
63. From conception to natural death, whether healthy or sick,
able bodied or disabled, rich or poor, every human being has the right to life
- "the right to live with human dignity“ [The footnote cites three addresses of Saint
Pope John Paul II.]
64. Neither the health care worker nor the patient himself has the
right to power over the life which is receiving care. “No one…can arbitrarily choose whether to live or die; the absolute master of such a decision is the
Creator alone, in whom ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17: 28).147”
“65…health care workers actively become the guarantors
of this right” to life.
66. The employment rights claims of health workers - just
though they may be -
must be subordinated to the care of the patient.
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