On the Sanctity of Human Life and the Present Crisis of Principle

To the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate,
and to all those who seek to preserve the Catholic faith in its integrity and fullness:
grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carissimi

A matter of grave consequence now stands before us. A measure has been advanced within the Parliament of the United Kingdom—having secured approval at its final stage in the House of Lords—which proposes that a child may be lawfully destroyed at any stage of pregnancy, including immediately before birth, where certain statutory conditions are certified.¹

This measure has not yet completed the legislative process, and that distinction must be maintained. Yet it would be mistaken to conclude that nothing of significance has occurred. The principle required to justify such a measure has now been openly advanced, defended, and accepted within parliamentary deliberation, and it is this principle, rather than the procedural stage of the bill, which demands our attention.

What is now being asserted is that the continuation of a human life may depend upon whether another judges that it should continue. In this formulation, life is no longer protected simply because it is human, but because it satisfies certain conditions determined by others. Such a position stands in direct contradiction to the constant teaching of the Church, which recognises that human life must be respected and protected from its beginning, not as a matter of policy, but because of what it is.²

The practical implications of this shift are already evident. A child capable of independent survival may nonetheless be destroyed if the relevant statutory conditions are certified. The determining factor is not the nature of the child, but the judgement applied to its continued existence. In this way, the law is no longer being asked to recognise and protect a human life; it is being asked to authorise its termination on the basis of assessed conditions. The transition from recognition to permission is decisive, because what is permitted may also be withheld.³

This principle does not remain confined to its initial application. If it is accepted that a human life may be ended because it is judged to be burdensome, dependent, or unwanted, those same criteria are not unique to the unborn. They apply equally to other forms of human vulnerability: to the elderly who require sustained care, to the disabled whose independence is limited, to the chronically ill whose treatment is prolonged, and to those who come to believe themselves a burden to others. Once the worth of life is made conditional upon judgement, the scope of that judgement is no longer fixed, and the category of those subject to it is liable to expansion.⁴

Nor does this development leave untouched the most fundamental of human relations. It alters the meaning of motherhood itself. Scripture presents the child in the womb not as a potentiality awaiting recognition, but as one already formed and known by God: “For thou didst form my inward parts; thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.”⁵ The natural relation between mother and child is therefore not constructed by human decision but grounded in reality. The Fathers speak with equal clarity: “The woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder.”⁶ If, however, the existence of the child is treated as contingent upon permission, that relation is subordinated to judgement.

It may be said that this proposal is not yet law and should therefore be regarded with restraint. That is correct in one sense, but incomplete in another. Laws do not arise in isolation. They follow from what a society has first permitted itself to consider arguable and defensible.⁷

It must also be recognised that such developments do not remain confined to a single jurisdiction. Legal and ethical arguments of this kind are cited, adapted, and advanced elsewhere—through courts, through international institutions, and through political pressure.⁸

At the same time, a tension becomes evident within contemporary debate. In discussions concerning assisted dying, it is often argued that the vulnerable must be protected, that safeguards tend to expand, and that clear limits must be maintained. Such arguments presuppose that human life possesses a value that cannot be made contingent upon judgement. Yet that presupposition is difficult to sustain if, in another context, it is accepted that life may be ended on the basis of assessed conditions. Once the principle is admitted, distinctions may be asserted, but they become increasingly difficult to secure.

It may further be objected that the law has historically permitted the taking of life in the case of capital punishment. That question is distinct. In its classical formulation, the death penalty concerns the punishment of grave injustice and the defence of society, and is not grounded in the claim that an innocent life lacks value or may be ended because it is burdensome or unwanted. The present question concerns the deliberate ending of innocent life on the basis of conditional judgement, and therefore rests upon a fundamentally different principle.⁹

At its root, however, the issue extends beyond law and policy into the question of authority itself. Scripture affirms that life belongs to God, who alone is its author and end: “I kill and I make alive.”¹⁰ If it is conceded that the worth of a human life depends upon whether it is recognised, desired, or permitted, then man assumes a role that does not belong to him. St. Augustine warns that justice itself is undermined when man sets himself as the ultimate arbiter of life.¹¹

Yet the truth remains unchanged. Every human being is made in the image of God, and therefore possesses a dignity that does not arise from autonomy, capacity, or recognition, and is not diminished by dependence, suffering, or decline.¹² As the Church teaches: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.”¹³ This dignity is not conferred by law and cannot be removed by it. It is given.

For this reason, these developments must not be treated as distant or abstract. They concern the principles by which human life is understood and protected. It is therefore necessary to remain attentive to the arguments by which such measures are advanced, and to recognise them when they appear under different forms.

It must also be acknowledged that, at the time of writing, no comparable public exhortation has been issued by the Catholic episcopate in this country, nor has there been a corresponding intervention at the level of the Holy See addressing this development in its present form. This absence does not alter the truth, nor diminish the obligation to uphold it. It does, however, increase the responsibility of the faithful to bear witness where clarity is lacking.¹⁴

This responsibility is not opposed to fidelity but arises from it. The faithful are called to hold fast to what has been given and to defend it when it is obscured.

Therefore, beloved sons and daughters, remain firm in what you have received. Do not concede the principle upon which the protection of human life depends.

For where life depends upon permission, no one is secure.

Haec est via.
Per Crucem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
S. Benedicti Abbatis MMXXVI A.D.

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¹ Thomas Erskine May, Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 25th ed. (London: LexisNexis, 2019), 649–655.
² Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), §2270. Latin: “Vita humana inde a conceptione absolute observanda et protegenda est.”
³ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), §20. Latin: “Ipsa iuris ad vitam natura negatur.”
⁴ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q.94, a.2 (Leonine ed., vol. 7, Rome, 1891), 170–172. Latin: “Bonum est conservatio vitae humanae.”
⁵ Psalm 139:13 (Vulgate 138). Latin: “Tu possedisti renes meos: suscepisti me de utero matris meae.”
⁶ Basil of Caesarea, Epistula 188, Canon 2, in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 32, col. 672. Latin: “Mulier quae fetus abortum procurat homicidii rea est.”
⁷ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §12. ⁸ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §18.
⁹ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q.64, a.2 (Leonine ed., vol. 9, Rome, 1895), 146–148. Latin: “Occidere innocentem nullo modo licet.”
¹⁰ Deuteronomy 32:39. Latin: “Ego occidam et ego vivere faciam.”
¹¹ Augustine, De Civitate Dei, I.20 (PL 41:32–33). Latin: “Iustitia est virtus suum cuique tribuens.”
¹² Genesis 1:27. Latin: “Ad imaginem Dei creavit illum.”
¹³ Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2270. ¹⁴ Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (1964), §37. Latin: “Ius est… sententiam suam manifestandi.”

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