According to Catholicism, is it sinful to physically harm abortion doctors to prevent them from performing abortions? Question: Is it sinful to physically attack a doctor who performs abortions and break his fingers so that he can not perform an abortion? If yes, why? If no, why? Does it depend on the circumstances?

Arguments against:


It would seem that one should not attack a doctor because he is not doing something unlawful.
It would seem that one should not attack a doctor because one does not have the authority to exert violence.


However, these arguments seem not to be good. To explain why I will give an analogy. 

Imagine a situation where some guy wants to dismember a 3-year-old child. You see him going toward the child, and you know for certain what he plans to do. You are able to stop him via violence (and no-one except that guy will be harmed in the process). However, your stopping him will be illegal. It still seems that you should stop the guy. This analogy seems to explain why neither authority nor what is (il)legal matter, and therefore it shows why arguments against are not good arguments. Also, it is often said that: "Necessity does not know the law." And that "Unjust laws are not really laws."


If it were not sinful to attack a doctor who performs abortions someone would already be doing it. But we did not see such a case.


Arguments for:


Using the same analogy as above, it seems not only that it is not sinful to attack a doctor, but that we have a duty to attack a doctor, just as we would have a duty to stop someone (if we are able to) who wants to dismember a 3-year-old child.


Maybe the arguments above depend on whether we see a doctor who directly goes to the hospital to perform an abortion, but not to a doctor who does not directly go to perform an abortion.

I am interested in responses from a Catholic viewpoint (preferably a natural law response).
Ends do not justify means.
It is never permissible to do evil so that good may come about: &quot;let us not do evil that there may come good&quot; (Rom. 3:8). Sin sometimes must be tolerated in order to prevent a greater evil.
St. Thomas Aquinas's answer to the question of &quot;Whether the rites of unbelievers ought to be tolerated?&quot; (Summa Theologica II-II q. 10 a. 11 co.) could be applied, mutatis mutandis, to whether  abortionists ought to be tolerated:

although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): &quot;If you do away with harlots [or abortionists], the world will be convulsed with lust.&quot;

cf. Vermeersch, S.J.'s Tolerance
In &quot;Whether human law should repress all vices?&quot; (Summa Theologica I-II q. 96 a. 2 co.), St. Thomas shows that human law should forbid murder:

human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.

Thus, &quot;laws&quot; permitting murder are no laws at all.
Abortion a state of war?
If the millions of abortions happening yearly constitute a state of war, then just war theory might be applicable. &quot;In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary&quot; (Summa Theologica II-II q. 40 a. 1 co.):

&quot;the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged&quot;

&quot;a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked [e.g., abortionists], should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault [e.g., killing innocent babies].&quot;

&quot;it is necessary that the belligerents [e.g., anti-abortionists] should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil [e.g., ending abortion].&quot;


Conditions #2 and #3 certainly could apply to abortion, but it is unclear that condition #1 applies. Has any civil ruler ever openly declared war against abortion?