Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. 72 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. 73
Catechism number 2273
The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and
respected by civil society and the political authority.
These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do
they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human
nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which
the person took his origin.
Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human
being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception
until death."79
"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of
the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is
denying the equality of all before the law.
When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each
citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a
state based on law are undermined....
As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the
unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate
penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's
rights."80