DEACON FOR LIFE: Nonpersonhood

Friday, December 22, 2006

Nonpersonhood

There's danger for the unborn too!

Nonpersonhood, then, is synonymous with a complete denial of legal rights. Much has already been written about the analogy between the decisions in Roe v. Wade and Dred Scott v. Sanford. Both involved the arrogant judicial pronouncement of nonpersonhood upon a certain class of human beings: children in utero in Roe and enslaved Blacks in Scott. A great deal has also been written to reveal the striking similarities between the Third Reich view of persons who were handicapped or Jewish and the contemporary view of the unborn. These are perhaps the most familiar previous examples of nonpersonhood but they are not the only examples. Nonpersonhood has also been reflected in the concepts of outlawry, presentment in Englishry, and apartheid.

[To be continued]

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LIFE IS SACRED

An example of the traditional magisterial teaching which indicates that it is never morally licit to intentionally kill a child through abortion in order to “save the life of its mother” comes from the teaching of Pope Pius XII:

“Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life-which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit.”