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Dear Father Angelo,
In appreciation for your work and with respect towards the Dominican order, I would like to put a question to your attention.

Self-defense is considered legitimate by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as long as it doesn’t exceed in violence the offense (CCC 2263).
However the Catechism states that it can become “a grave duty” to such an extent that murder may be legitimized, if one’s life is in danger. “Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder” (CCC 2264).
Having said that, the Church has considered war also to be licit in case of defense, and such a position, as long as valid motives are present, is in accordance with the natural moral law.

Yet I wonder why John Paul II did not apply the same principle to therapeutic abortion (Ref. Evangelium Vitae, n. 58).
In cases where the mother’s life is in danger (which is very rare) and she must (hypothetically) choose between her life and the baby’s, wouldn’t suppressing the life in question to save one’s own be considered legitimate self-defense?
Granted that I as a christian agree both with the Church’s definition of legitimate self-defense and on the natural moral right to life, my answer to this question is the following (correct me if I am wrong).

The Church considers self-defense legitimate, even in case of murder, when it is exercised against the aggressor, but it cannot be considered legitimate if you murder someone who is not willingly attacking you (in fact it is not the baby’s will but his body that is causing the mother’s death); therefore self-defense remains valid but only if it is exercised in response to the direct action of the guilty, when he is deemed of sound mind (so for instance killing a baby in the womb or a violent mentally disabled individual out of self-defense is illicit).

Tell me, am I wrong?


Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. I too appreciate your desire for research.
It is true that the Church recognizes the right and also the duty of legitimate self-defense.

2. However the expression you used: “legitimate defense may become a grave duty to such an extent that murder may be legitimized”, is incorrect.
Murder is evil, and as such can never be legitimized or committed.

3. Now, to better clarify the question, legitimate self-defense is not aimed at suppressing the aggressor, but at defending oneself. If the aggressor dies while the aggression is taking place it must be emphasized that the objective of the action was not the death of the aggressor, but self-defense.
The death of the aggressor is not the objective of the action of legitimate defense, but the consequence of a legitimate and necessary action.
So much so that even law enforcement, in trying to stop the aggressor, acts not to kill, but to intimidate, impede, nullify the effects of the aggression.
Unfortunately one of the effects of nullifying such aggression may be the death of the aggressor, but he would be solely responsible for it, having exposed himself to this risk, and not who was only defending himself.

4. In a second question you ask why John Paul II did not justify therapeutic abortion.
Well, it ought to be very clear that the principle of legitimate defense cannot be invoked in the case of therapeutic abortion, for three reasons:
First, the baby has no intention whatsoever to harm the mother;
Second, babies are not in the mother’s womb of their own will;
Third, babies have no interest in compromising the mother’s health; quite the contrary, her health is in their best interest, because their very well-being depends on it.

5. Therefore whenever some argue: “either save the mother or the baby” our response should be: our objective is to save both. We cannot decide whom to suppress, because none of us owns anybody else’s life.

6. This also answers your last question.
We can’t say that the baby’s body is harming the mother because it was the mother that placed that body there.
From the moment of conception the mother has placed herself at the service of the baby.
The mother’s will, even in difficult moments, should be exercised both in favor of her own life and in favor of the child’s life, over whose existence she can claim no power.I bless you and remember you in my prayer.
Father Angelo