Blessed Pope John Paul II cautioned against the advances of a "culture of death" in our day and called for countering it by building up a "culture of life." These are terms which he employed in his great 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life, and they are such powerful constructs that they soon entered the very language of contemporary public debate. The Catholic Church is at the forefront of the struggle against a culture of death, raising her voice against direct assaults against human life such as abortion and euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, and the use of embryonic human beings for research. In The Gospel of Life, John Paul II declares, "To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others." 1
This is a moral analysis of cases of "vital conflicts," where the lives of both the mother and child are at risk during a pregnancy. It is stated by some ethicists that directly killing the baby to save the life of the mother is morally justified, even when the direct action of the doctor is to kill the baby. Examples are provided to illustrate how Catholic moral principles apply. It is concluded that direct killing, regardless of the intention, is not justified. The doctor should always work to try and save the lives of both the mother and the child. One should never be directly killed even if the intention is to save the life of the other.
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