Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

34 JOSEPH A. SELLINGWhat most people using the vernacular terminology fail torealize is that “act in itself” (obiectum) represents an abstraction,a logical distinction that is necessary to perform a professional,technical assessment of human moral activity (actus voluntariusmoralis). When faced with the occurrence of evil, it ishelpful to identify precisely how or where this evil occurs. Is itsomething extraneous (circumstantial) to the entire moral eventor is it something essential? Determining whether evil occurs ineffects or in the “what is done” is helpful for this assessment,but it is not finally decisive. For, there are instances in whichthe omission of one’s act (what Aquinas would call indirectlyvoluntary: voluntarium indirectum, I-II q 6 a 3) may result in amuch larger, disproportionate evil occurring.Take, for example, the famous case of ectopic pregnancywhere the embryo is located in one of the fallopian tubes. If it isallowed to grow, the tube will burst and the woman’s life will bethreatened. When it became possible to perform a procedure toremove the fetus, moral theologians sought a way to justify this,precisely because omitting the procedure (doing nothing) wouldprobably result in the death of both the embryo and the woman.The woman’s life could be saved as an effect of the procedure,but if the procedure was to be justified by the PDE the death ofthe embryo would have to be described as an “effect”. Becauseof the first condition of the PDE, removing the embryo (whichmight also physically be described as an abortion) could not beallowed to function as “what was done”, or in common vernacular“the act (in itself)”. Thus, moralists suggested that theremoval of the stretched and about to rupture fallopian tubecould be justified by the principle of totality (sacrifice a part forthe saving of the total organism) while the presence of anembryo within that tube could be considered “circumstantial”.This is the kind of casuistry that gave moral theology a badname. For, held up to the light of day, the “act” of removing whatis an otherwise healthy tube effectively causes more harm thanthe removal of the embryo alone. Whatever procedure is used,the embryo will perish. If the fallopian tube is removed, or if it isallowed to rupture by postponing the procedure until there is anactual life threatening situation, the damage done will result in aloss of fecundity as well as exposing the woman to an unneces-