Social Doctrine: Conscientious Objection, Child Labor, War, Women’s Dignity, Medical Ethics
The Right to Conscientious Objection
Citizens are obliged in conscience to follow civil authorities’ prescriptions unless they are contrary to the demands of the moral order and fundamental human rights. Unjust laws create dramatic problems of conscience. When called to cooperate in morally illicit actions, it is a moral duty and a basic human right to refuse. Civil law must recognize and protect conscientious objectors, shielding them from legal penalties and any legal, disciplinary, financial, or professional harm.
It is a duty of conscience not to cooperate, even formally, in practices that, while permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. This can never be justified, either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by relying on civil law. Nobody can escape moral responsibility for their actions, and everyone will be judged by God.
Child Labor
Child labor is a less visible but terrible form of violence. It is a moral problem beyond political, economic, and legal considerations. Leo XIII warned: “We must carefully avoid having children in workshops before their bodies, intelligence, and souls have sufficiently developed. Early activity withers the forces of childhood like tender grass, making children’s constitutions frail.”640 The scourge of child labor persists after more than a hundred years.
While children’s contributions to household and national economies are undeniable in some countries, and some part-time work may be helpful, social doctrine highlights the increase of “labor exploitation under conditions of real slavery.”641 This exploitation is a serious violation of human dignity, regardless of a person’s size or perceived utilitarian value.642
Failure of Peace: War
The Magisterium Condemns War’s Cruelty
In our nuclear age, it is absurd to argue that war is a vehicle to remedy violated law. It is urgent to find alternatives to war for resolving international conflicts.
1. Self-Defense
If war breaks out, the attacked State has the right and duty to organize a defense, even by force of arms. For this to be lawful, four conditions (Just War) must be met:
a) The damage caused by the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain.
b) All other means of ending the aggression must have proven ineffective.
c) There must be serious prospects of success.
d) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
Example: Iraq War
2. Defending Peace
The demands of self-defense justify the existence of armed forces, whose actions should serve peace, goodness, truth, and justice. Armed forces members are morally obliged to oppose orders to carry out crimes against international law and universal principles.
Example: Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
3. The Duty to Protect the Innocent
Humanity requires protecting civilians from war’s effects and preventing atrocities and abuses. Refugees are a special category of war victims, and the Church shows special care for them, committed to defending their human dignity.
Example: The Vatican hiding thousands of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy
4. Action Against Those Who Threaten Peace
International sanctions aim to correct the behavior of governments that violate peaceful coexistence or oppress their populations. Sanctions should be precise and regularly checked. Negotiation and dialogue must be prioritized.
Example: Genocide by National Socialism and Adolf Hitler
5. Disarmament
Social doctrine proposes general, balanced, and controlled disarmament by all nations. A State may possess only the means for self-defense. The use of children and adolescents as soldiers in armed conflict should be reported and stopped. They are deprived of a normal childhood and education and trained to kill.
Example: “Armed peace” before World War I
6. Condemnation of Terrorism
Terrorism disregards human life and cannot be justified. There is a right to self-defense against terrorism, but the fight against it must respect human rights and state principles. Identifying offenders should not be influenced by religion, nationality, or race. Along with force, a clear analysis of the reasons for terrorist attacks is essential to solve the problems. No religion can tolerate or preach terrorism.
Example: FARC
Dignity of Women at Work
Feminine genius is needed in all expressions of social life, so women’s presence in the workplace must be ensured. The first step is access to vocational training. Recognizing and protecting women’s rights in this area depends on work organization, which must consider dignity and vocation. “True advancement requires that work be structured so women don’t sacrifice their unique qualities and family roles, where they have an irreplaceable role as mothers.”
Persistent discrimination against women in the workplace stems from harmful conditions that have marginalized and even enslaved them. These difficulties persist, as evidenced by situations worldwide that humiliate women and subject them to exploitation. Effective recognition of women’s rights in work, especially regarding pay, safety, and welfare, is urgent.
In the family-work relationship, special attention is due to women’s work in the family or family-care tasks, starting with mothers. This work, focused on quality of life, is eminently personal and personalizing. It must be socially recognized and valued, even with financial rewards similar to other tasks. Obstacles to spouses freely exercising their creative responsibilities, particularly those preventing women from fully developing their maternal functions, must be removed.
Medical Ethics
Medical ethics studies medical acts from a moral perspective, describing them as good or bad, provided they are voluntary and conscious. “Medical acts” are those performed by medical professionals for patients and society. This involves not only the physician-patient relationship but also public health, clinical research, and biological research. It extends beyond the bedside or operating room to areas like telemedicine. Medical ethics defends inviolable human life, which must be treated with benevolent love. Defending the right to life is an existential commitment for everyone, especially for the weakest. Two main themes in medical ethics are:
A. Euthanasia
Medical advances have made prolonging life increasingly possible. Patients once considered incurable now live longer. However, doctors sometimes use extraordinary methods to keep patients alive, which may be unnecessary. Some propose euthanasia as a solution, advocating for laws to protect the “right to die” and allow “mercy killing.”
But what is euthanasia? Is it ethical? Does it align with biblical teachings? What should be the Christian response?
Originally, “euthanasia” referred to “the art or discipline of dying in peace and dignity.” In the nineteenth century, it began to mean causing death without pain, particularly for those with incurable and painful diseases.
Christians disapprove of direct suicide and homicide. However, some see a difference when a person is suffering from disease. While we hate suffering, we want to do what is right in God’s eyes.
Medical and legal death usually occurs when a patient shows no signs of life, no brain activity, and no hope of restoring activity. At this point, doctors can remove life support. It’s important that this “brain death” applies to the whole brain, including the cerebrum (responsible for voluntary actions and conscious thought) and the cerebellum and brain stem (which coordinate muscle movement and involuntary bodily functions).
The Church’s stance against euthanasia is:
If a terminal patient chooses not to be connected to life support, the Church approves, as it allows life to take its natural course. However, if a patient is already connected, the Church disapproves of disconnecting them, as this would be murder, causing death unnaturally.
The Catholic Church is euthanasia’s greatest enemy, as God gives life, and only He can determine when it ends. Euthanasia violates ethical and moral principles underpinning society and goes against the religious values the Catholic Church has upheld for centuries.
B. Abortion
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Before entering the field, look at what John Paul II about the relativity of the language used by many to hide this terrible crime:
Particularly in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology such as “interruption of pregnancy”, which tends to hide its true nature and reduce its seriousness in public opinion. But no words can change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct as it is performed by a human being in the initial phase of its existence, extending from conception to birth. “(Letter Enc. Evangelium vitae, John Paul II, 25/3/1995).
From the moment the egg is fertilized, it opens up a new life that is not the father or the mother, but of a new human being that develops by itself. Never be made human if it has been since then. Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life, its capacities requires time to develop and to act.
An example in which one can clearly see the use of sound ethical is the case of a mother seriously detrimental to the fetus she carries within her body. In this situation, what is the ethically right thing to do? You could say the right thing would be to let the mother live as you may have more children than is the head of a family or some other reason, as it might seem “more” human fetus. But from this point of view the right thing would be to kill an innocent life. Which is a very serious homicide because the fetus can not defend. Seen this way, would it ethically right to take away the right to live for someone who can not even defend themselves? The answer is no, only God can give and take life.
Another example is the theme of the morning-after pill,
Direct abortion, that is, willed as an end or a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, in the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it violates God’s law written in the heart of every man.