Page 35 - Vaccines

Key principles of Catholic moral theology

itself or principally lethal would be intrinsically and
gravely immoral, also where the victim were an unborn
child in an action undertaken to try to save the mother
but precisely by killing her baby.

vi. Justice and the medical good
The various criteria already elaborated are also criteria of
justice; thus, the competence and professionalism of those
who intervene upon the human body of a person who is
ill or who is at risk of becoming ill, the requirement of
informed consent and the limits it implies, are but two
aspects of the demands of justice in this field. A further
aspect of justice concerns effective access by those in need
to what is required in order for them and others to be able
to look after their health properly, implying that health-
care resources be justly and efficiently marshalled, not
squandered on those cosmetic interventions which are
egoistic, equitably distributed and employed according
to the objective health needs of human beings, according
to the gravity and the urgency of their condition, the real
prospects of being able to help them, without favouritism,
privilege or manipulation, and in accordance with more
specific criteria for the use of limited resources, based on
these objective therapeutic needs.⁷
While acknowledging the principle of charity or of
solidarity which is a moral requirement in the case of
donors of tissues or of organs, when these are conducted
in a morally legitimate manner, justice in these cases, but

sity Press, Chicago, 1977), pp. 124–133 and notes 1 and 2 (p. 327).
⁷ Cf. A. Fisher and L. Gormally, Healthcare allocation: an ethical
framework for pubilc policy (The Linacre Centre, London, 2001),
107–161; M. Nogier, Les problèmes éthiques liés aux contraintes
bugétaires en rapport à l'exercice de la médicine en France (Ateneo
Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, Roma, 2011), pp. 213–290.

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