In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the sanctity of life principle might be stated as follows:

The sanctity of life principle is sometimes employed in such a way that would suggest that the use of the words themselves should put an end to moral argument,(200) what could be seen as an exchange of reasoning for dogma rather than seeking an understanding of what life is, when it has moral worth, and what the relative role of other principles is. Even in a strictly religious context, in the Western tradition, the need to sustain human life, purely because it is that, is not overriding.(201–203) Glover defined the sanctity of life principle as one in which taking life is intrinsically wrong.(204) He argued that the doctrine “is not acceptable, but there is embedded in it a moral view we should retain.” He does not argue that it is not wrong to take away life, but that “conventional moral views about killing are often intellectually unsatisfactory.”