OK to Kill?

[7777777Now]

Hi,

I was in a conversation with a coworker about abortion and how I don’t believe it is ever right. I also said I don’t believe in corporate punishment. My coworker was wondering what I would do if my wife would die of complications because we didn’t want to abort a child or if someone trespassed into our home and was about to kill my wife. He wondered if I would kill that person.

Does anyone know if there is a place in the bible that says it is ok to kill someone if they are going to kill you or a love one?

Is it ever good to murder? By the way, i know the argument about a smaller evil being better than a bigger evil so that isn’t going to help me here.

Thanks!

 

[teachccd]

Hi,

I was in a conversation with a coworker about abortion and how I don’t believe it is ever right. I also said I don’t believe in corporate punishment. My coworker was wondering what I would do if my wife would die of complications because we didn’t want to abort a child or if someone trespassed into our home and was about to kill my wife. He wondered if I would kill that person.

Does anyone know if there is a place in the bible that says it is ok to kill someone if they are going to kill you or a love one?

Is it ever good to murder? By the way, i know the argument about a smaller evil being better than a bigger evil so that isn’t going to help me here.

Thanks!

Murder is intrinsically evil. No good can come from taking a life. But if you look at a situation where your death is imminent due to the actions of another then by killing the other person you are saving your life. One life will end and the fault lies on the one who decides to kill initially. So if you allowed this person tho kill you it could actually be a sin of lack of love for yourself. In other words, your life is precious enough to keep. Losing your life is as bad as taking one’s life. So in this case where a life will be lost and all other measures failed then self defense that includes ending another’s life would be justified. God see’s ALL life as precious. Your life is not worth any less to God than the murder’s life. He knows the situation and He knows the actions that you had to take. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and we must honor God by preserving ourselves even if drastic measures must be taken.

Abortion is never o.k… In the example about a spouse that may die due to complications of her pregnancy we have a common example of taking things to the extreme. There have been times when women who have been told this very thing lived and are very thankful that they followed their instincts and kept the baby. Your wife could die from many things. (God willing this is not the case) Taking a life in a case where a doctor says that it is necessary does not indicate a cause to end the life of the child. If your wife has a procedure to save her life and the RESULT of that procedure was the death of the baby then there is no sin. There was no intent to end the life of that child. A case might be in an automobile accident where certain surgical procedures are necessary to save your wife and the child dies as a result of the necessary medical treatments.

The Bible is full of accounts where certain lives were taken for various reasons. Jesus was a victim of capital punishment. The very first war was when Cain killed Abel and it just continued from there. The fifth commandment says," Thou shalt not kill." So there is never a good reason to take a life. And this means even your own at the hands of a murderer…God Bless…teachccd

 

[johannahw]

I was wondering. What is moral in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? In this case, if there is no surgery to remove the embryo, both mother and baby die.
I’ve always wondered this.
Johannah

 

[teachccd]

I was wondering. What is moral in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? In this case, if there is no surgery to remove the embryo, both mother and baby die.
I’ve always wondered this.
Johannah

If both mother and child will die then it is morally acceptable to save the mother. Not that one life is worth more than the other but it is understood that she may have other children to raise and if one can be saved it would seem that if any reason plays a role here it would side for the mother. I heard this from a theologian who specializes in moral issues such as these. I only echo his thoughts. Any other opinions may blow me out of the water but then that’s why I learned to enjoy the view while I’m up there…God Bless…teachccd

 

[MariaGorettiGrl]

I was wondering. What is moral in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? In this case, if there is no surgery to remove the embryo, both mother and baby die.

First of all, cases where both baby and mother are going to die are waaaaaaay rarer than pro-choicers like to make it seem. Most doctors never even see such cases.

Secondly, in cases like ectopic pregnancy, the goal is not to kill the child. The goal is to stop the death of the mother and the child. In doing this, the child has basically no chance of surviving because it is too young, but there is no puposeful ending of the child’s life.

The same thing goes for self-defense. You, in defending someone else’s life, are not setting out to try to kill someone. You are trying to save a life in whatever way possible. If the only way to stop a person from killing your wife is to injure them so seriously that they die, then so be it. It is not murder. There was no premeditation (necessary for murder).

As for defense killing versus abortion, why don’t you ask your co-worker what he would do if HIS wife was in danger. I mean, if people have a right to chose what to do with their own body, then your coworker has no right to either stop the killer (who has a right to hold a weapon and point it anywhere he wants, even if someone happens to be in the way of their personal space) nor fight for his wife (who has a right to either protect herself or die). If it’s not your coworker’s body, then it’s not his business, right? It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what the whole pro-choice argument is!

 

[Truly_Beloved]

God see’s ALL life as precious. Your life is not worth any less to God than the murder’s life. He knows the situation and He knows the actions that you had to take.

I strongly agree with this. I believe we have a moral obligation to protect the life/lives of the innocent, even if that means harming (or even killing) the aggressor. This line of thinking extends to the notion of a “just war,” where a country is morally permitted to assemble an army to defend itself against an attack.

I was wondering. What is moral in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? In this case, if there is no surgery to remove the embryo, both mother and baby die.
I’ve always wondered this.
Johannah

There’s actually a “right” and a “wrong” way to deal with an ectopic pregnancy. If you remove the affected fallopian tube (or affected section of the tube), then the intention is to remove a diseased organ, while the unfortunate secondary result is the death of the baby. If you outright kill the baby by abortion (and therefore leaving the tube intact), you commit murder. It’s all in how the surgery is done. If it’s done to just “remove the embryo (baby),” then we are talking about a surgical abortion. Does that make sense? I don’t know if this was the answer you were looking for, but I felt compelled to share.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Hi,

I was in a conversation with a coworker about abortion and how I don’t believe it is ever right. I also said I don’t believe in corporate punishment. My coworker was wondering what I would do if my wife would die of complications because we didn’t want to abort a child or if someone trespassed into our home and was about to kill my wife. He wondered if I would kill that person.

Does anyone know if there is a place in the bible that says it is ok to kill someone if they are going to kill you or a love one?

Is it ever good to murder? By the way, i know the argument about a smaller evil being better than a bigger evil so that isn’t going to help me here.

Thanks!

From the Catechism:

Legitimate defense

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."65

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. 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 even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.66

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68

In other words, when there is no other choice, you have a right to use force, including deadly force in the defense of yourself, your family members and your society and country – in fact, it can be a duty.

As to abortion, it is always a grave sin when done intentionally. But there are cases, such as an embryo developing in the fallopian tube where if nothing is done, both mother and child will die. In such a case, it is permissible to act to save the mother’s life, even if the child dies. In such a case the principle of Double Effect applies – the **intent **is not to kill the child, but to save the mother. The death of the child is an unintended, but unavoidable result.

 

[puzzleannie]

I was wondering. What is moral in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? In this case, if there is no surgery to remove the embryo, both mother and baby die.
I’ve always wondered this.
Johannah

search on ectopic, it has been discussed many times here, let us not derail the thread.

 

[dylanschrader]

Regarding extra-uterine pregnancy, abortion is still morally illicit.

Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services says:

1. Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers.

…]

1. Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.

1. In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.

Regarding killing in self-defense, the Catechism says:

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."

Evangelium Vitae says:

The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor!

To understand the moral issues involved, it is necessary to learn about the moral principle of “double effect,” which allows–depending on various factors–that in some cases an action which is morally good may be taken even though it is foreseen that it will have an evil secondary effect. It is not morally licit to intend the evil effect or for the evil action to be a means to the good end.