sanctity of life
Existence deserves protection
Sanctity of life is the principle that human life is sacred and inviolable, deserving protection from conception to natural death.
The phrase appears most often in debates about abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, typically invoked by those opposing practices that end life: The church's teaching on the sanctity of life forbids assisted suicide.
The concept has religious roots but also appears in secular ethics.
- fetal rightsLegal claims of the unborn
- sacrednessQuality of being holy
- fetusGestating offspring
- nonviolencePrincipled rejection of force
- anti-abortionOpposing pregnancy termination
morality · bioethics · personhood · intrinsic value · stewardship · palliative care · playing God · soul · human dignity · human rights law · pacifism · inviolability · vitalism · deontology · do no harm · womb · reverence · embryo
- CatholicismVatican, cardinals, pope, Holy Communion, popes
- ethicsmorality, deontology, dignity, utilitarianism, morals
- religious ethicsChristian ethics, divine command, moral law, divine law, love thy neighbor
- Reproductive Rightsabortion law, abortion ban, reproductive autonomy, bodily autonomy, right to choose
- moral theologyconscience, mortal sin, venial sin, natural law, moral law
- Catholic social teachingCST, encyclicals, human dignity, subsidiarity, common good
sanctity of lifeutilitarianism
Greatest-happiness moral theory
consequentialism · cost-benefit analysis · quality of life · instrumentalism · moral relativism
sanctity of lifeculture of death
Ethos devaluing human life
genocide · pro-death · death cult · eugenics · extermination
sanctity of lifequality over quantity
Preferring excellence to abundance
right to die · death with dignity · mercy killing · collective welfare · greater good