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Dignity and
Sanctity of Human Life While all
God’s creation is good, human life has a special dignity and sanctity.
For this reason one should never intentionally destroy human life, but
should protect and enhance it at every stage and in every condition. The special
status of human life is based on two truths. First, human beings are set
apart from the rest of creation because they are specially created in the
image and likeness of God. The Book of Genesis says this directly (Gn
1:26-27) and also expresses it symbolically in its account of man’s
creation. God brought forth all the rest of creation by a simple word, but
fashioned man with his own hands and “breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gn 2:7). Human nature is
blessed with free will, so that we can receive God’s love and choose to
love God and others in return. Second, human
beings have an eternal destiny, because all are called to eternal life
with Christ. By assuming our human nature, Christ has united himself with
every human person (cf. Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 22), so that “rejection of
human life, in whatever form that rejection takes, is really a rejection
of Christ” (Pope John Paul II, encyclical The Gospel of Life, Evangelium
Vitae, 104 [1995]). Because the horizon of human life transcends this
earthly existence, disrespect toward human life here and now has eternal
significance. To say human
life has dignity means it has intrinsic, and not only instrumental, value:
“Man is the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own
sake” (Gaudium et Spes, 24). Human life is good in and of itself, and
not only good for other purposes. To say human life has sanctity is to
emphasize that each human being has been specially willed into existence
by God to enjoy a loving relationship with him, and therefore should be
treated with reverence. St. Paul says we should treat the human body as
“a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19). To mistreat bodily life on
the pretext of serving some higher purpose is a kind of desecration. Respect and
reverence for human beings demand unconditional respect for human life,
because life is our first and most basic gift from a loving God and the
condition for enjoying his other gifts. As the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith said in its 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia: “Human
life is the basis of all goods, and is the necessary source and condition
of every human activity and of all society” (I). We cannot pursue other
human goods or achieve worthwhile goals if we are not first assured of our
very existence. The Right to
Life • From the foregoing it is clear that when we speak of human rights
that demand respect from individuals and society, we must speak first of
the right to life. The 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says: “The first right of the
human person is his life. He has other goods and some are more precious,
but this one is fundamental – the condition of all the others. Hence it
must be protected above all others. . . . It is not
recognition by another that constitutes this right. This right is
antecedent to its recognition; it demands recognition and it is strictly
unjust to refuse it” (11). Because this
right is inherent in simply being a member of the human family, it must
belong equally to every human being. Thus: “Any discrimination based on
the various stages of life is no more justified than any other
discrimination. The right to life remains complete in an old person, even
one greatly weakened; it is not lost by one who is incurably sick. The
right to life is no less to be respected in the small infant just born
than in the mature person. In reality, respect for human life is called
for from the time that the process of generation begins” (Declaration on
Procured Abortion, 12). This right
does not belong more to some than to others. “As far as the right to
life is concerned, every innocent human being is absolutely equal to all
others” (Evangelium Vitae, 57). Human beings are not equal in their
strength or their ability to defend and advance their own right to life.
But this only means that the strong, and society as a whole, have an
obligation to protect and assist the weak and helpless in defending their
right to life (cf. CCC 1935-1937). Human life is
therefore also a social good; its protection is a basic purpose for which
societies and legal systems are established. “When the Church declares
that unconditional respect for the right to life of every innocent person
– from conception to natural death – is one of the pillars on which
every civil society stands, she wants simply to promote a human state. A
state which recognizes the defense of the fundamental rights of the human
person, especially of the weakest, as its primary duty” (Evangelium
Vitae, 101). Negative and
Positive Precepts • The sanctity of life has both negative and positive
implications for human action. Negatively,
we must not attack or demean human life. First and foremost is the divine
commandment against homicide: “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13; Dt
5:17). This command forbids the directly intended taking of one’s own
life or anyone else’s, regardless of the stage or condition of his or
her life. As the Second
Vatican Council observed, however, human life is attacked or demeaned in
many other ways as well: “The varieties of crime are numerous: all
offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion,
euthanasia and willful suicide; all violations of the integrity of the
human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture, undue
psychological pressures; all offenses against human dignity, such as
subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery,
prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working
conditions where men are treated as mere tools for profit rather than free
and responsible persons: all these and the like are criminal: they poison
civilization; and they debase the perpetrators more than the victims and
militate against the honor of the Creator” (Gaudium et Spes, 27). In recent
decades, the Church has warned against the devaluing of human life
reflected in policies favoring capital punishment, and has urged
governments wherever possible to limit themselves to “bloodless means”
for defending the innocent against aggressors (CCC 2267; Evangelium Vitae,
56). The Church also has spoken against the misuse of modern technology to
attack life or to treat human beings as mere objects, whether that
technology lies in the realm of nuclear or biological warfare, genetic
experimentation, or reproductive medicine. These
negative precepts against destroying or demeaning life establish “the
absolute limit beneath which free individuals cannot lower themselves”
if they are to respect life; but such precepts also free us to say yes to
life in every sphere of human activity (Evangelium Vitae, 75). There is a
positive obligation “to promote life actively, and to develop particular
ways of thinking and acting which serve life” (Evangelium Vitae, 76). In this
regard, Pope John XXIII listed among basic human rights “the right to
life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are necessary and
suitable for the proper development of life. These means are primarily
food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary
social services” (encyclical Peace on Earth, Pacem in Terris, 11
[1963]). The principle
of the dignity of life therefore grounds a program of active concern for
the conditions of human life, beginning with people who are most
disadvantaged: “As you did it to one of these the least of my brethren,
you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Since each person has a right to
necessities of life such as food, shelter, and basic health care, those
with abundant means have a responsibility to share their abundance with
those who need help to survive and lead lives of dignity. While there may
be legitimate differences of opinion as to how best to serve these needs
in a given society, deliberate failure to help provide basic assistance
shows a morally culpable indifference to human life. “Feed the man dying
of hunger,” said one medieval maxim, “for if you do not feed him you
have killed him.” A Consistent
Ethic • Some recent Church documents, especially those issued by the
Catholic bishops of the United States, seek to unite these negative and
positive precepts in what is called a consistent ethic of life. Such an
ethic does not equate all norms on respect for life or assert that all are
of equal gravity; still less does it insist that each individual devote
equal time to all arenas in which human life is threatened. But it does
highlight the way in which respect for life undergirds a wide variety of
obligations to our fellow human beings. It emphasizes, for example, that
even in meeting the positive obligation to defend innocent life from
attack, we must not directly intend to destroy the life of the attacker
but must only do what is necessary to defend life. To Catholics who may be
tempted to accept only part of the Church’s witness to life – for
example, its rejection of abortion or its concern for the poor – this
ethic suggests that consistency demands respect for both concerns. A consistent
commitment to human life appreciates the need for both the negative and
positive precepts discussed above. A commitment to negative norms against
taking life, divorced from an active commitment to promote and enhance
God’s gift of life, can become legalistic and hardhearted; a charitable
impulse to serve the needy, divorced from the norms that forbid us to
destroy life to serve our goals, becomes an abomination. Negative
precepts, such as the norm against direct killing of the innocent, are
absolute in a way that does not apply to positive precepts. Such negative
precepts define certain acts that are incompatible with God’s law by
their very nature, so that we could never turn them into ways of serving
God’s plan for human fulfillment. These norms apply always and
everywhere, “semper et pro semper,” establishing a basic minimum by
which to judge our respect for life. The positive precept to promote and
enhance human life is also universal, but is not absolute in quite the
same way because it is open-ended: There is no “maximum” to our
positive love of God and neighbor (cf. Pope John Paul II, encyclical The
Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 52 [1993]). Moreover, what will
best promote and enhance life in a given case may depend on circumstances,
and in doing so one must not violate other people’s rights or other
moral norms. In
particular, the positive obligation to protect and preserve life should
not be pursued to the point where it interferes with man’s spiritual
good. Earthly life is the first and most basic human good, but it is not
the highest such good – eternal life in God is (cf. Evangelium Vitae,
2). Therefore, seriously ill persons are not obliged to submit to
life-sustaining treatment that would impose needless suffering on them and
interfere with their peace of mind and spiritual well-being. And the
Church has always honored martyrs who remained faithful to the Gospel,
although it would mean losing their lives (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 47).
Their faithful witness, despite threats of death, is radically different
from suicide, which involves the directly intended destruction of life.
One does not show disrespect to earthly life by recognizing that
faithfulness to God’s word is even more important. Albeit in a
less dramatic way than martyrs, all Christians are called to fulfill their
lives by dying to themselves, forgetting their selfish interests, and
serving the needs of others. “Life finds its center, its meaning and its
fulfillment when it is given up” (Evangelium Vitae, 51). Modern
Debates • The major modern objections to the Church’s teaching on the
sanctity of life are of three kinds. The most
radical objection is the claim that human life should be subordinated to
the dictates of individual human choice. This claim is sometimes put in
theological terms: If life is a gift from God, we should be allowed to do
what we deem best with that gift or even return it to the giver. This argument
forgets that earthly life is the condition for our making free choices
about other human goods, so that a free choice to destroy life undermines
the good of freedom as well. Earthly life is very different from any
ordinary gift we could possess, manipulate, or give away; this life is our
own bodily reality as human persons. It is absurd to speak of ourselves as
owners of this gift, as if we could somehow separate ourselves from it and
declare ourselves its masters. Rather, the gift of life is the gift of
ourselves – a gift over which we are called to exercise careful
stewardship, not absolute dominion. Such mastery or dominion belongs only
to God (cf. 1 Sm 2:6; 2 Kgs 5:7). A second
objection rests on a dualistic idea of the human person that denies
inherent value to the human body, arguing that only the mind, spirit, or
will has such value. In this view, people’s bodily lives need not always
be respected or even protected from direct attack, especially when their
higher mental or spiritual activity is undeveloped, diminished, or lost. This approach
poses a serious threat to the lives of some of the most helpless human
beings – the unborn, the mentally retarded or senile, the comatose, and
the dying. Its theological error lies in denying the radical unity of the
human person, composed of both body and soul. This unity is such that the
body shares in the dignity of the image of God, and the soul can be
considered the very “form” of the body (CCC 364-365). In the Christian
view, bodily life and health should not be promoted at all costs, to the
detriment of moral and spiritual goods; but life and health should always
be inviolable from direct attack, and always have inherent value as the
life and health of a human person. Bodily life must never be dismissed as
simply “a complex of organs, functions and energies to be used according
to the sole criteria of pleasure and efficiency” (Evangelium Vitae, 23). A third
objection concedes that the sanctity of life is a noble religious ideal,
but denies that it can have meaning or real impact in a secular,
pluralistic society. This approach dismisses efforts to protect innocent
life in law and culture as mere impositions of denominational belief. The Church
forcefully rejects this claim. The inherent goodness of human life and its
importance as the condition for enjoying all other human goods and human
rights are truths of natural law that can be grasped by all people of good
will (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 101). The need to protect the lives of all
human beings can also be appreciated by reflecting on historical
situations in which some category or group of human persons was denied a
right to life. Such exclusions of some humans from society’s protection
have inevitably been condemned by history as shameful and unjust. In
insisting on the defense of all human life from conception to natural
death, the Church seeks to promote not so much a more “Christian”
society as a society more truly human (cf. CCC 2273). To be sure,
the sanctity of life is also of great significance in Catholic doctrine.
What Pope John Paul II calls “the Gospel of life” affirms natural law
principles on the dignity of life, while transcending them in a vision of
humanity’s special role in God’s redemptive plan. There is here an
important link between the Church’s teaching on matters of faith, on
creation and the Incarnation, and her teaching on morals. The Holy Father
has therefore called the Gospel of life “an integral part of that Gospel
which is Jesus Christ himself” (Evangelium Vitae, 78).
See:
Abortion; Absolute Moral Norms; Body and Soul; Capital Punishment;
Deterrence; Euthanasia; Genetic Experimentation; Health Care; Homicide;
Human Experimentation; Human Person; Moral Principles, Christian; Natural
Law; Reproductive Technologies; Social Doctrine; Suicide; War. Suggested
Readings: CCC 355-365, 2258-2330. Vatican Council II, Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 23-32.
John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, Evangelium Vitae. Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion; Declaration on
Euthanasia. Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care
Workers, Charter for Health Care Workers. J. Bernardin et al., Consistent
Ethic of Life. B. Ashley, O.P., Theologies of the Body: Humanist and
Christian. Richard
Doerflinger Russell
Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright ©
1997, Our Sunday Visitor.
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