To answer this question it should be pointed out that there are two kinds of law, Natural Law and positive law. The former according to Fr. Thomas J. Higgins in his book “Man as Man. The science and Art of Ethics”, is:
The Natural Law consists in practical universal judgements which man himself elicits. These express necessary and obligatory rules of human conduct which have been established by the Author of human nature as essential to the divine purposes in the universe and have been promulgated by God solely through human reason.7
Higgins goes on to explain,
Just as man formulates principles of knowledge, such as the principle of contradiction, and mathematical and physical formulae, so also he forms judgments concerning his moral behavior. Reflecting upon the world about him, he arrives at general conclusions regarding human action, such as, Children must obey their parents. These judgments express two things: (a) a norm of human conduct; (b) an obligation to follow the norm.8
While positive law,
is a rule of action freely chosen by a competent authority for the common good and promulgated not in the nature of the subject [ i.e. not arrived at by “reflecting upon the world about him” ] but in some external sign. Positive comes from positum or ‘given’. In this context it means law given by a determinate lawgiver at a determinate time, place, and occasion.9
and,
Positive law is a declarative law inasmuch as it commands or forbids what is commanded or forbidden by the Natural Law, or more clearly applies the Natural Law to specific cases, or enjoins what is necessarily deducible from the Natural Law as requisite for good living. Both the content and the binding force of such law comes immediately from the Natural Law and is positive only in its mode of promulgation and the special sanction – if any – which attaches to it.10
Higgins cites common laws defining things like perjury and robbery and providing civil penalties for these as examples. Clearly what any civil authority can permit is limited and constrained by Natural Law which forbids the deliberate taking of any innocent life, regardless of the circumstances.
References
1. What We Heard Report. A Public Consultation on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) 1.0. Introduction
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
4a. What We Heard Report. A Public Consultation on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) 2.0. Results from the Online Questionnaire
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. p. 90.
8. p. 91.
9. p. 127.
8. p. 128.
105. EXCLUSIVE: Canada is on track for another record-busting year of euthanasia deaths, with a 35% jump to some 13,500 state-sanctioned suicides in 2022, a DailyMail.com projection shows
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