Respect Life: Why Human Dignity Matters in the Eyes of the Church
By Jessica Zerishnek
"If you want peace, work for justice. If you want justice, respect life. If you want life, embrace the truth – truth revealed by God."
Pope John Paul II
Each and every human being is created in the image and likeness of God. We as Catholics understand this to be true from the very beginning of time, where we find the creation story of Adam and Eve, to the birth, life, and passion of Jesus Christ, who spent his life confirming the dignity of each individual person. Jesus said, "Even the hairs of your head have all been counted" (Lk. 12:7), to express how God cares for all people. In revealing His unconditional love for us, we see that He therefore expects all of us to have the same love for life, as members of a Christian family. Because of this, it is our responsibility to ensure that each human life is taken care of, from conception to natural death.
Respect for each human life is expected of us in the eyes of the Church. However, it does not only exist on the obvious levels, such as treating others as you would want to be treated and obeying your elders. This includes the specific conditions that will be furthered upon in this paper, those being abortion, assisted suicide, capital punishment, and genetic technology. These situations fall under the category of the consistent life ethic, which is based on how we treat and respect one another. Philosophy and theology have converged on the dignity of human life in past years, to prove that the quality of life should not be based upon your usefulness or productivity, but that each person is created by God and therefore maintains a sacred and unbreakable human dignity.
In 1973, the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide. With this legalization, an abortion culture arose, in which abortion is viewed as an answer to personal, social, and economic problems. It encourages young men to feel no responsibility towards their children, and those men that do care are often left helpless with no say in the protection of their child. When a woman has an abortion, she suffers physically, emotionally, and spiritually so that the infant is not the only life lost, but the woman as well. The family of a man and a woman partaking in an abortion also suffer and change as a result of losing an innocent child. This process ultimately results in the breakdown of family life in our world. More than 38 million abortions have taken place since 1973, unnecessary in a country where positive alternatives abound.
The Church sees abortion as the taking of a human life, no matter what stage of life that may be. At fertilization, all human development becomes a continuum, or the unfolding of the potential that already exists in the embryonic cell. In the tradition of Christ, we as Catholics have a responsibility to speak and act in defense of these little people. According to a survey conducted by crisis pregnancy centers across the country, the number one reason among women for choosing abortion was pressure from a boyfriend or husband at 38.2%. In a time when women’s choice is being stressed more than ever, the Church proclaims that we do not have the right to "play God", and that human life has inherent worth that began when our Lord formed a plan for us, before we were in our mother’s womb. Though the government recently has backed the Pro-Choice stance, our forefathers stood behind Pro-Life ideals when they wrote our Declaration of Independence, saying that our nation would first respect life as being among the inalienable rights bestowed on us by our heavenly Father. A just society protects life before as well as after birth.
Going from one stage of life to another, the elderly and disabled are sadly viewed more and more as burdens by society. The human dignity of each elderly person has diminished in the eyes of a culture where they are seen as useless and worthless. This view was the premise to seeking to eliminate the "imperfect" from our society. Euthanasia is being seen as the right and moral thing to do for someone who is suffering, and even has already become legal in Oregon. Under the guise of an act of mercy or "mercy killing", assisting death in actuality is a way of abandoning the people whose problems we do not wish to deal with. It is truly "false mercy", because instead we must care for those who are suffering or near death by being in their presence, keeping them in our prayers, and administering the sacraments of the Church.
Though someone’s death is inevitable and healing no longer possible, we are obliged to care for the dying. What these people need – especially when they are sick or helpless – is assistance in living with dignity. A prime example of this is Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who died after he suffered from cancer. He wrote about his experience, and as a man who often spent time with people suffering from serious illness, he understood their feeling of what he called "disorientation, isolation, a feeling of not being ‘at home’ anymore" (The Gift of Peace by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin). But as he suffered himself, he found that the words of comfort that he could never find to give to others came more easily. He discovered the ability to know when to listen to them, or simply to reach out a hand. So too does the Church teach – that our only choice in the matter is to offer out support. Assisted suicide is never an option despite human tragedy, because death is the threshold we must cross on our own to reach final and eternal life with God.
In our duty to reverence every life, we are asked to also consider the human dignity of each person concerning capital punishment. While the Church agrees that the state has the right to inflict punishment on those who do not uphold the law, the Church also says that to do so by lethal means is morally inappropriate. In Confronting a Culture of Violence, written by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is stated that "our society looks to violent measures to deal with some of our most difficult social problems. … Violence is not the solution; it is the most clear sign of our failures."
The destruction of human life takes away a gift that is God’s alone to take. Capital punishment causes irreparable harm, in eliminating the possibility for rehabilitation and penitence. The Church has become convinced that in almost all cases, life in prison is a sufficient sentence for someone who has committed a crime. The Church only condones execution in a situation where it is necessary to preserve the common good, such as the offender would cause more harm to society if he or she was to continue living. This is rarely the case, because maximum-security prisons are usually sufficient. Capital punishment does not protect society, but worsens it by promoting violence as an answer to our problems. We are also called to forgive those who have harmed us, not harm them by following the "eye for an eye" concept. Being victimized is not a time for responding violently, but a time for spiritual renewal and re-commitment to our faith. In God’s eyes, a person who has committed a heinous crime is always given the chance to repent. By taking that life away, we are hindering that natural process and assuming a right to take life that only God possesses.
Though the Church and state are kept separate on issues and stances, religion and science, though not adversaries, can influence and complement each other. Faith and reason are seen as influencing one another, because together they result in a search for deeper understanding. While science searches for solutions to physical human problems, the Church reminds them that a human is not only a physical being, but a spiritual one, as well.
Human embryo research brings up ethical problems because it classifies some human beings as "subhuman." It denies the dignity and uniqueness of the human being, and a life should never be treated as a means to an end. In embryonic stem cell research, embryos left over from in vitro fertilization attempts are killed so the stem cells may be used for research. In essence, this can be applied to the Church’s views on abortion, because an embryo is a human being that has a right to life. It is wrong in any case to end that life, simply for the betterment of science. Many scientists say that because the embryo will die anyway, why not feel free to do with it what they wish? But in reality, would you apply that same concept to the terminally ill? The answer is no, and we must remember that when questioning the ethics of genetic technology.
Even a genetically created life is seen as sacred in the eyes of God. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a way of creating life in a petri dish. A fertility clinic takes eggs from the woman and sperm from the man and attempts to join them in a glass dish, then those embryos are transplanted into the woman’s womb, in hopes that one of them will survive. This eliminates pregnancy through intercourse, a key step in marriage. Because the intervention of a fertility clinic replaces that marriage act in order to engender life, it is not seen as moral. Unfortunately, many married couples do not realize that this is a sin. Through IVF many embryos are created, but over 90% of them die. Conception should occur within the marriage act, not from the manipulations of physicians.
Cloning is another way of producing children without the marriage act being involved in any way. This complex procedure has yet to be successful of a human being, and though there are many reasons why one might use cloning to create a new life, none of those reasons are moral. This process deprives a child of a natural mother and father, and some researchers wish to use cloning subjects purely for scientific experimentation. These considerations are wrong and go against the human dignity of the human lives being created and destroyed.
Respect for life begins with acknowledging that the first right of a human being is his life, just as the beginning of our Declaration of Independence states. Life is valuable at all stages – conception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, middle aged, retired, elderly – because all ages of people contribute in some way to our society. In God’s eyes, we are all equal, made by Him in His image and likeness, and this is the way life is viewed by the Church. Human dignity is not something that people earn or buy, but is given to each and every person before they are born. This is the truth that God has revealed to us.