A reader writes:
Two honest questions:
1) Are doctors who perform late-term abortions mass murderers?
2) How was what the guy who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller in Wichita (the guy claimed to have been preventing a mass murderer from taking more innocent lives, re: “if you had the chance to kill Hitler, would you?”) different from what we as a government did to Osama bin Laden (a mass murderer, as he’s being called)? The first mentioned event was abhorred, the second seems to have been condoned.These thoughts kept me up til the wee hours of the morning and I was trying to write about it, but I couldn’t come to any conclusions. I’m sure you are busy, but any perspectives?
1) If a doctor performs a lot of abortions he is a mass murderer. If he performs a few, he is a murderer. It does not follow that random citizens have the right to go around shooting abortionists.
2) I think the confusion you are facing here may turn on the Church’s understanding of Just War theory. The idea behind it is not “If you fulfill the criteria for Just war then you get to kill.” It’s “If a war fulfills the criteria for Just War then, alas, you may have to kill.” In other words, Just War theory exists to make it really hard to justify killing. It does so by putting a series of road blocks in the way of the human urge to start shooting other people.
One of the road blocks Just War sets in our way is the criterion of “competent authority.” It means that not just anybody can open fire if they think they face a lasting, grave and certain threat. The idea is to keep Jeb Hatfield from going off and shooting Homer McCoy, even though Homer McCoy shot Abner Hatfield yesterday. Instead of relying on subsidiarity as the Church normally does and saying, “The person closest to the problem is the one to deal with it,” in matters of violence the Church very deliberately invokes solidarity and says, “Let the life and death decisions be made by people further up the chain of command with cooler heads, not by the Hatfields and McCoys.” This comes out of the chaotic era when Europe was broken up into zillions of little warring clans, tribes and fiefdoms. As the nation-state began to emerge, the Church worked to push the power of life and death out of the hands of local warlords with their endless reciprocal blood feuds and put the decision to go to war into cooler heads further from the problem, namely kings, parliaments and national governments. It’s not a perfect solution, but it does put another check on bloodshed rather than letting hotheads just whack each other in perpetual mob violence.
Much the same idea, by the way, is seen in the concept of a jury trial of impartial citizens, rather than a lynch mob composed of enraged villagers who are convinced somebody is a witch. The idea, once again, is to deliberately put the brakes on subsidiarity when it comes to violence and let somebody further up the chain of command make the call about who lives and who dies.
That’s why going around shooting abortionists is evil. A citizen is not the State and vigilantes contribute to the destruction, not the establishment of domestic tranquility. An individual does not have the power of life and death over another citizen, the competent authority does. That’s one of the contracts you sign when you agree to live in a country governed by rule of law and destroying that contract would have even more disastrous effects than the already disastrous abortion regime we live under. A United States in which each citizen felt himself empowered to kill fellow citizens would be indistinguishable from the chaotic tribal slaughter chronicled in the book of Judges. Domestic tranquility is put at such a premium that the Church urges we work within the civil order, even when the civil order tolerates sometimes very gross violations of justice. And so, an individual American had no authority to murder Hitler till we entered the war against Germany in December 1941. But once we did enter the war, the civil authority had the duty and responsibility to fight and, of possible, kill Hitler, and an American soldier would have been obedient to competent authority to shoot him had he gotten him in the crosshairs.
Same with bin Laden: Tthe civil authority has the power to kill bin Laden as an enemy of these United States, but an individual citizen has no authority to kill a George Tiller. The state, says St. Paul, has a right to bear the sword (Romans 13) to mete out justice. Private individuals do not.
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“...enemy of these United States, ..”
Good piece, Mr. Shea; and kudos on the phrase. That reads so old school it is bracing
I also immediately thought of Tiller the killer when I heard that Osama was killed. Thank you for the article
I am confused about the nuance in your last paragraph. You said that the civil authority has the “power to kill bin Laden”, where as an individual citizen has “no authority to kill a George Tiller”. I do not see power and authority as being synonyms, and have always understood that to have the power to do something is different to have the authority to do so.
Leave the decisions to the pillars of virtue…politicians.
Killing is always inhuman, uncivilized behaviour. But when hatred mongers like Osama kill and plan to kill not one but a community or nation, what is the remedy ? The STATE which has the power and authority must act as per given situation. None can object
Let us begin with Divine Science revelation on Murderer( First Principle) The criminal law of the Isrealites distinguished between willful murder and accidental or justifiable homicide; murder being invariably visited with capital punishment ( Leviticus 24:17) ; cross reference with Genesis 9:6 , while the person guilty of manslaughter was entitled to the protection of one of the cities of refuge ( Number 35:11 sq.)
Man Slayer - when a person slain was regarded as being ” delivered into his hand” by the Almighty , the slayer ( as usually rendered) was allowed the protection of one of the cities of refuge ( Number 35:6,12) ,of which there were six ,where he might remain until death of the high- priest ( Numbet 35:28) ,when he was required to ” return into the land of his possession “. This protection was accorded only those who killed a person ” unawares” ( accidentally) ,and was not extended to murderers.
Abortion would be classified as ( Injury to a pregnant woman : Exodus 21:22-25) the definition of injury is to harm or damage, offend ( meaning was found in 1586) Man- slayer, injury to a pregnant woman and Murderer are Crimes Against The Person . Christ teaching on these subjects and resolution ( Christ’s Law concerning the Murderous Spirit - Matthew 5:21-22, Christ’s law of non- resistance - Matthew 5:38-39, Christ’s law of Purity in thought - Matthew 5:27-28)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church made clear of understanding Christ’s law by giving us a further explanation ( precept # 2268-2269 on the fifth Commandment in reference to Intentional homicide which applies to all Crimes Against The Person ( Criminal Laws) the catholic Catechidm of the Catholic church on the responsibility of the public authorities in reference to war # 2307-2317
Finally, the penetrating light of Incarnate Wisdom- light is the imperishable light of the Law!!!!!!!
Hope this was helpful
Leave the decisions to the pillars of virtue…politicians.
At the time Paul wrote Romans 13, the Caesar of which he spoke was Nero, the man who would eventually murder Paul. Paul sees Caesar’s power as subordinate to, but still granted by, God for the sake of the common good. He does not thereby baptize Caesar as a saint or pillar of virtue. Our civil authority is likewise riddled with problems. But it’s *still* better than the anarchic violence advocated by vigilante nutjobs.
I once saw an interview of Tiller where the person asked “Do you think what you are doing is wrong” His reply “I,ve done nothing wrong it,s the LAW”.GOD HAVE MERCY.
Peter, put away your sword. We must not think as man thinks.
The murder of Osama bin Laden disgusts me.
I would not have killed Adolf Hitler. I would have told him to stop.
All this killing disgusts me.
I would not have killed Adolf Hitler. I would have told him to stop.
Oh, and he would have stopped just because you told him to, huh? He didn’t listen to almost every single world leader at the time, including the Pope, but he’d have listened to you? Why?
For the record, Hitler wasn’t killed by the U.S.; he did the deed himself because he was a coward.
I have wondered about this for years. Thanks Mark, you article clears it up.
But a follow-up question… what about self defence or defence of the innocent? If an abortionist is about to kill an unborn child and someone is trying to stop it (the mother changes her mind, say), but the abortionist tells her to shut up (which has happened), could the mother or someone nearby use violence on the doctor to prevent the abortion?
The government has a responsibility to prosecute murder. When they don’t, citizens feel helpless and like there is no justice. Today, even when abortionists commit what the government recognizes as crimes, there is no justice. If they hold down a woman or slap her or tell her to shut up as they kill her baby, if they are being forced into a “clinic” by a parent or “lover,” if they kill viable born babies, they face losing their license at worst—and rarely that. I don’t condone killing abortionists, but I think a government that turns a blind eye to the offenses of even the worst abortionists bears some of the blame if a vigilante takes action.
Just out of curiosity, if an American abortionists was training Irish citizens to perform abortions, and then they went back to Ireland and illegally killed unborn Irish children, would the Irish government be justified in invading the US and killing him?
Mark, At the risk of opening another line of debate ... I recall that some individuals criticized you (during the whole LiveAction debate) when you said that we are not at war with abortion and, therefore, cannot randomly perpetrate “sting” operations on Planned Parenthood—just as we cannot shoot abortion doctors at random.
Also, I recall that you and I both used the same reasoning to argue that individuals ought never voluntarily to take matters into their own hands (whether killing or lying) since the State is the competent authority in such matters. This would be vigilante justice and would quickly lead to the destruction of society.
Bin Laden was unarmed… at least that is what has been inferred. Was it right to kill him, under those circumstances? Should they not have taken him prisoner? Are my facts wrong on this?
Telling someone to stop this type of behavior is like standing in front of an oncoming tank and quietly saying stop…. only if it is an American tank would you survive.
It’s actually a fallacy that morals apply differently to a person or to a state. Firstly, the state is not a person, but an institution whose decisions are made by a person. Secondly, the application of justice is not meted out by the state, but by persons according to just laws, even if they happen to be part of the institution of the state.
The notion of a reason of state has been used to justify evil by persons hiding behind the institution of the state throughout the centuries. It is a notion that must be eliminated from codes of moral law.
There was a teaching by a bishop on the radio the other day. What I understood from it was this: Killing a human person can never be a right action. It can only be a secondary result, that is, an unintended consequence, of a right action, that is, self-defense. Self-defense is a right action. For that reason, self-defense can only use the force necessary to stop the aggressive action and no more. That is, targeting the life of another can never be the telos of our action. It cannot be willed for its own sake.
I am paraphrasing what I understood the bishop was teaching. Now, based on that, this is what I interpret: We could have stopped bin Laden without killing him. We were able to take him prisoner. He was in his pajamas.
Bin Laden’s case can’t be dealt with under Just War Theory, because according to Bush, it was not a true war and therefore none of these people were covered under Geneva convention. So we killed Bin Laden when he should have been captured and brought to trial. Is this correct?
What happens if the state police shoot an unarmed person in his home, even if someone else in the home is shooting? I honestly do not know, I’m don’t know how that works. Although how can we deal with it under our own justice system when it happened in another country? But then it is all exempt from Geneva convention standards, since they are not really enemy combatants…but then they are…..it really seems to me that the US is just making up whatever rules suit us at the moment. It all seems very convoluted to me.
I think it is really time that Christians as a whole began to make up their minds about violence in general. We twist things around so much that anyone would think we don’t have a rational brain cell. Is it right to take a life or isn’t it? The whole world is becoming more and more violent and we have nothing coherent to say. At least the early Christians said something: they never took up arms. They just went to the lions.
The state, says St. Paul, has a right to bear the sword (Romans 13) to mete out justice. Private individuals do not.
I read this and it is an admonition to Christians to respect the civil law, in a time when they had no say in the government. The words were spoken to the early Christian communities, not to the government. In a democratic society, supposedly we ARE the government. We can’t take those words that are an admonition to the Christian community and use them to give a carte blanche to government killing. Not saying that’s what you’re trying to do here but it gets taken that way.
Good article, nice, subtle distinction.
Betty,
I don’t think Bush is a (professional/learned) Ethicist, and probably didn’t really know the distinction between a just war and whatever the heck he was doing as president. He had so many different things going on—and being a moral person, was trying to justify them. But I don’t think he was right to pin everything on torture, its like he began with poorly formed first principals.
But the state is even bigger then Bush—he is no longer in power, but the state is still acting to protect US Citizens.
Good work Mark
Jose - “Stop you bad man” - when the Bishops rightly admonished Hitler against his treatment of the Jews, the Nazis expanded their killing. You are rightly disturbed at the death of another human being. However, your preferred approach to mitigating the problem could result in more killing. The answer is that we should tell bad men not to kill, threaten consequences if they do, and then,within the framework of Church teaching, we should ensure they don’t.
Granted, Bush is not a professional ethicist, and I know respect that, Laura. But it seems to me that the fact that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong, as a Christian, and supported by Christian voters, to me speaks that something is really wrong about the way we as Christians view war and violence. You shouldn’t need a doctorate in ethics to know that torturing people is wrong. It ought to be in your gut. Our state is acting to protect US citizens, agreed, at least in this case. But good intentions never justify wrong actions. And if killing a person is wrong, I just don’t get it. Why is it always wrong…except? Shouldn’t the US be prosecuted for not following international agreements? Shouldn’t we be following the rule of law? Didn’t we just invade another sovereign nation without so much as notifying them? And didn’t we just break into a private home and shoot an unarmed man in his pajamas? And isn’t pretty much everybody in Catholic circles saying “justice!” I don’t get it, somebody please explain.
What if it had been the wrong house and we killed some Pakistani movie star by accident? Everything would have been exactly the same, motives, intentions, actions, just some human error thrown in. What then?
“Ooops, sorry, we thought he looked like bin Laden.” I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon but I am honestly trying to understand.
Mark, you write that “...an individual American had no authority to murder Hitler…”. Well, how about an individual German who knew about the Concentration camps and the Holocaust? I’m thinking here of Dietrich Boenhofer and all those associated with the attempt to kill Hitler? Weren’t they justified in trying to stop this evil? If so, why not for the abortion doctor killer if we truly believe that he is killing human lives?
Miles:
I think we are dealing with a prudential matter in that case. The plot to kill Hitler had the goal of establishing a military regime that would sue for peace and end the war. It was a desperate gamble that failed. In short, it’s goal was to establish a civil regime that was more in line with the law of God than Hitler’s radically evil and dying gangster movement. (No regime is ever very close, but humans can generally do better than the the Third Reich). In contrast, a state founded on some insane theory of anarchic mass vigilante violence in which each citizen is empowered to butcher anybody he feels need’s killin’ is no state at all but savagery.
Mike, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Yes what about Boenhofer. So was he wrong in
what he did or tried to do? According to this article
anyone attempting to take out Hitler should have
been a part of the Nazi government in order for it
to be acceptable. By the way Romans 13 was Hitler’s
favorite verse and was used repeatedly in Nazi propaganda.
To those who feel we have been wrong in what we have done, I am sorry that you did not get the chance to sit and speak with such a calm person as bin Laden or even Hitler. I feel sure that both would have succumbed to reason. I too, am opposed to abortion—early, late or in between—but, and how I wish this weren’t true, for now it is not against the law, technically, for a doctor to perform abortion, thus making killing him illegal. Is that right? No, but it is legal. We need to pray and do what we can, legally, to change laws like Roe v Wade. We need to truly open our doors and arms to the mothers who feel they have no other choice, no place else to turn. We nee to quit JUDGING these girls/women and instead LOVING them. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethern, that you do unto me.”
By the way Romans 13 was Hitler’s favorite verse and was used repeatedly in Nazi propaganda.
And from this we are to conclude….. what exactly?
According to this article anyone attempting to take out Hitler should have been a part of the Nazi government in order for it to be acceptable.
Unfortunately for you, David, your attempt to make me Hitler for 15 minutes posted just after my reply which showed your cheap shot to be rubbish. Thanks for making the inevitable moronic Godwin’s Law contribution which must always attend any combox discussion. Does anybody else wish to establish a stupid “It’s Either Complete Anarchic Violence or Nazi Tyranny!!! CHOOSE!!!!” false dilemma? If so, please use an easily identifiable name or handle so that sane people can mark and ignore all your future contributions and carry on a mature and intelligent discussion.
What are your thoughts on my hypothetical question about Irish abortionists?
I think your hypothetical situation is too hypothetical to address. Another roadblock just war throws up is “prospect of success”. Committing your country to a suicide mission is not just war. If Ireland declared war on the US, it would be suicide for Ireland. It would also radically fail the proportionality test. The sane response for Ireland is to arrest the abortionists and shutter the clinic, not to declare war on the US, particularly since the trainer was a private agent, not an agent of the State.
I was only suggesting a surgical strike to take out the terrorist who was training those taking the lives of Irish citizens—much as the US did in Pakistan. We did not declare war on Pakistan, nor do we plan to.
I do not need to read the article to say that God sees all of us as sinners due to the original sin. We have all fallen shor of God’s grace and even if we do not deserve his mercy, it’s within his grace to have forgiven us. Thank the Lord, Jesus, for that.
Who am I to compare one over the other? Who is to say who is better or more sinful? I am not one to pass judgement through comparisons. Only God does that. Am I any less of a sinner if Osama bin Laden committed all those atrocities in God’s eyes? I think not. I am just as guilty as Hitler, or bin Laden. I just hope that God continues to forgive. Judge not lest ye be judged.
i have an example that i would like to know what other people think about it: a parent has a right to protect his child. so what if i had a child growing inside of a woman and that woman went to get an abortion. let’s say the doctor is just about to kill the child. don’t i have the right to break in and kill the doctor before he kills my child. i think i do.
Sam, you seem to be missing the part about only using necessary force. It seems likely that you could stop the doctor without killing him. I doubt he’d fight an armed man over this.
Further, you might want to consider whether this would actually stop the woman from having an abortion. Couldn’t she find another doctor? Wouldn’t you be in jail, and unable to stop her from having the child killed that time?
I wonder if kidnapping the woman would be a reasonable solution. You could hold the woman until is in labor then take her to the hospital. You’ll have saved the child by this point, though you will end up in jail a while. Thoughts?
And what of the 4 other civilians who were gunned down in the raid? I suppose their deaths at the hands of the state were also justified. Has the state apologized for their deaths yet?
Regarding the abortion side of things, I personally hope that medical advances and science technology can be the answer here. Children born premature are being saved today at earlier and earlier times along the 9 month period. The result is that the “rights” that pro choicers are defending are being seperated from the rights of the child. If the child can be safely removed from the mother and brought into the world, I would think we would say that she has the right to not have the child in her body (it is her body), but she doesnt have the right to terminate the childs life.
Thought about responding to Mark Shea, but when
you have a priest as one of your cheerleaders who doesn’t believe the unborn child is a living
human being, it pretty much does the job
David, bearing false witness is a sin. Please back up your accusations with proof.
JoAnna - you need only look a few posts up to find your proof. You have someone calling himself by the title “Fr.” and claiming that a fetus is not a living human being. I’m hoping the whole post was sarcastic, but not assuming. Some people who have apparently never seen a biology textbook actually believe this.
enness - I was asking for proof that “Fr.” Tim was a “cheerleader” of Mark’s. It seems that he (“Fr.” Tim, who may or may not be an actual priest) actually disagrees with several points stated in Mark’s article (for example: “Fr.” Tim obviously disagrees with this statement of Mark’s: “If a doctor performs a lot of abortions he is a mass murderer. If he performs a few, he is a murderer.”)
I’m trying to understand how this makes “Fr.” Tim one of Mark’s “cheerleaders” given that he disagrees with about half of Mark’s article.
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