Sanctity of Life

Strong Sanctity of Life	Weak Sanctity of Life
Argues that all human life is sacred to God, as a result it is morally impermissible to ever allow contraception, abortion, euthanasia or to turn of life support.	Argues that human life is sacred to God and the principle of the Sanctity of Life must always be considered in issues of life and death, but the situation should also be considered e.g.: If a mother had an eptopic pregnancy which is incredibly dangerous they would argue that even though the foetus would die it is permissible to allow an abortion since it would save the mothers life.
They may follow biblical teachings such as: “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” this indicates to us that we have a special relationship with God that should not be broken.	Quality of life is often considered e.g., if someone is on life support, they have no hope of recovering, they have a mediocre quality of life so turning off their life support would be acceptable.
“Your body is a temple of the holy spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God” (1 Corinthians 6:19) à this explains that we have God inside of us, if we were to kill another then we would be killing a part of God	They also believe that humans have the God given right of autonomy which states that we have the right to decide what is right for ourselves since we are also made in Gods image, we should know what to do.
“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall be their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind” (Genesis 9:6) à illustrates that we should reflect Gods nature and an omnibenevolent God would not murder
CRITISIMS
It is often criticised as being uncompassionate and allowing unnecessary sufficing. For example, people with terminal illnesses are in a state of indignity and it is uncompassionated to let them live.	Conservatives of those who believe in the strong sanctity of life would argue that this ignores the fact that suffering can be a good thing. It has a spiritual place in allowing us to understand what Jesus went through on the cross.

Catholics argue that we need the sanctity of life to have social order. This is based of Aquinas Natural Law and the idea that God designed all things to have the potential to live in harmony if they follow Gods law. If we go against Gods natural law, then it will lead to immorality and social disorder. It is dangerous for humans to decide what to do in situations as we may become corrupted by the power it gives us. Mother Theresa said “the greatest threat to world peace is abortion. If a mother can kill her own child in her own womb, what is left to stop us from killing one another?”

è This argument does not really work. Most of Northen Europe is atheist and they follow quality of life rather than the sanctity of life. However, these countries ate no less happy than religious ones and are some of the most stable and happy countries in the world.

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