I see myself as a spiritual son of St. Augustine. I even named my son after him. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I saw his words trotted out in defense of abortion in the pages of the
New England Journal of Medicine
. As a physician, I would normally be thrilled to see Augustine quoted in medical literature. But not this time. In a recent
article
, Dr. Matthew Wynia proposes physician disobedience in the wake of
Dobbs—
he suggests that as state abortion bans take effect after
Roe’
s overturning, doctors should perhaps collectively defy these laws and continue to perform abortions. He supports his argument by appealing to Augustine’s maxim that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Would that the author had considered his source more carefully. He misunderstands both Augustine’s writing on abortion and his writing on justice.