VATICAN - The Instruction “Dignitas personae”: a great “yes” to human life

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Dignitas personae,” the Instruction published today by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on several bioethical questions - updating information contained in “Donum Vitae” - offers a great “yes” to human life from conception until natural death. The first part makes reference to anthropological, theological, and ethical aspects, while the second and third part address procreation and the problems that are coming into the light as a result of scientific progress.
Regarding procreation, the techniques of heterologous artificial fertilization, as well as those techniques of homologous artificial fertilization, which substitute the conjugal act, are to be excluded; and “techniques aimed at removing obstacles to natural fertilization” are considered licit, if they are therapeutic; the desire is also expressed that through legislation, the recourse to adoption will be encouraged, as well as research and investment directed at the prevention of sterility.
As for in vitro fertilization and the deliberate destruction of embryos, there is an emphasis on the immense number of embryos that are discarded (over 80%), as well as on the multiple transfer of embryos, with the goal that at least one of them will implant itself, taking measures to assure that some are done away with, so as to avoid multiple births: “a utilitarian treatment of embryos.” The instruction considers it “ethically unacceptable to dissociate procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act” and defines ICSL, “technique is used with increasing frequency given its effectiveness,” as “intrinsically illicit.”
Cryopreservation – the freezing of embryos in prevision of a second cycle of treatment – is considered “incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos.” In regards to these embryos, so called “orphans,” the Instruction says that “proposals to use these embryos for research or for the treatment of disease are obviously unacceptable because they treat the embryos as mere 'biological material' and result in their destruction.” Likewise, proposals to thaw them and “without reactivating them, use them for research, as if they were normal cadavers, is also unacceptable.” Also unacceptable are proposals to use them as “treatment for infertility” for infertile couples. Likewise, the proposal of “prenatal adoption” of these embryos presents ethical problems.
The freezing of oocytes is also considered “morally unacceptable.” It is a proposal made to avoid the serious ethical problems presented by the cryopreservation of embryos. Reduction of embryos, which is an intent to reduce the number of embryos or fetuses present in the womb through direct extermination, is defined as “intentional selective abortion.” Preimplantation diagnosis “constitutes an act of abortion.” This form of prenatal diagnosis linked to the techniques of artificial fertilization and is “directed toward the qualitative selection and consequent destruction of embryos.”
The Instruction also addresses the use of forms of interception (techniques that intercept the embryo before it is implanted on the uterine wall) and contragestation (which provokes the elimination of the embryo that has been recently implanted), placing them within “the sin of abortion.”
As for the “new treatments which involve the manipulation of the embryo or the human genetic patrimony,” among those considered licit are those interventions made through techniques of genetic engineering on somatic cells (tissues and organs of the body) with a strictly therapeutic purpose. However, in the case of gene therapy using stem cells, in the present state of research, “it is not morally permissible to act in a way that may cause possible harm to the resulting progeny.” As for the question of using genetic engineering for purposes other than medical treatment, to manipulate, improve, or strengthen the gene pool, it says that “the attempt to create a new type of human being one can recognize an ideological element in which man tries to take the place of his Creator.”
Cloning is considered intrinsically illicit, as it is an attempt to “it seeks to give rise to a new human being without a connection to the act of reciprocal self-giving between the spouses and, more radically, without any link to sexuality.” As for reproductive cloning, which seeks to determine arbitrarily the genetic characteristics of another person, represents “a grave offense to the dignity of that person as well as to the fundamental equality of all people.” Even more serious yet is therapeutic cloning (which seeks to create embryos with the intention of destroying them, in an attempt to cure illnesses), which is considered as “incompatible with human dignity.”
Adult stem-cell research is encouraged and the use of stem-cells from the umbilical cord at the moment of birth, as well as the use of fetus tissues of those who have died a natural death is considered licit. So-called hybridization, which mixes human and animal genetic elements capable of disrupting the specific identity of man, is an offense to the dignity of the human person. This process uses animal oocytes for reprogramming the nuclei of human somatic cells.
Experimentation on embryos is a source of serious moral disorder and researchers are asked not to use “biological material” illicitly obtained, produced in a research center or made available commercially. (DQ) (Agenzia Fides 12/12/2008)