The Ethics of Medical Homicide and MutilationO'Malley, Austin
Religion
The Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation
O'Malley, Austin
Medical ethics
Again, the killing of the inviable ectopic fetus cannot be justified
by maintaining that the fetus is an unjust aggressor against the life
of the mother. An aggressor against life may be such formally or
materially. A formally unjust aggressor consciously and voluntarily
attacks the life of the victim unjustly. This perversion, or evil, in
the aggressor's consciously actuated will sets his own right to life
in juridic inferiority to that of the victim's right to life, and the
victim may defend his own life, even unto the indirect death of the
aggressor in necessity.
The materially unjust aggressor attacks the victim's life unjustly,
but whether the aggressor is sane or insane, the attack is not
voluntary. When an insane aggressor appears to use his will, such
use lacks all moral quality because of the absence of intellect and
reason; he wills improperly, as a brute is said to will. In either
case, nevertheless, there is active aggression directed against the
victim's life, which also sets the aggressor in juridic inferiority
to the victim, and permits the victim to defend his own life to
extremes. As great an authority as De Lugo holds that in such
defence, whether the aggressor is formally or only materially such,
the victim may directly kill, but direct killing is never necessary,
as it is all a matter of intention.
The ectopic fetus cannot, of course, be a formal aggressor because it
cannot exercise either intelligence or will. It is not a materially
unjust aggressor, because the only action it is capable of is to
increase in size in obedience to the natural law of growth. It is
not trying in any manner to tear the maternal blood-vessels. It has
a right to its own life and a right to grow. Its growth may finally
bring about a maternal hemorrhage, but just now it is not causing
that hemorrhage. An aggressor is such only while there is an actual
attack going on here and now, directed against the victim's life. The
fetus is necessarily passive always, never aggressive in any sense
of the term, until the actual rupture occurs. If it may be deemed
materially aggressive when the actual rupture is taking place, the
question becomes irrelevant, because at that time the fetus may be
removed for other reasons altogether. If an insane man is in a room
with a loaded revolver which he may not use against me, but which he
probably will, I may not kill him in self-defence until he actually
begins the aggression. The opinion expressed here is the contrary of
the opinion I expressed, in 1906, in _Essays in Pastoral Medicine_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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