Nobody can ignore the grave problems that the bio-ethical research poses to the Catholics. Near its numerous merits  -we must be thankful, for this, to the Lord and also to the patient researchers who, with their creative perseverance, shift the horizons of knowledge more and more forward, as well as the horizons of assistance and cure of our physical and psychic deficiencies- there are also unacceptable proposals, not rarely poured into too simple a way, into laws, which do not respect the dignity of the human person.  

Interrogatives on the new therapeutic perspective

In several countries, for instance, a bio-political” act is being effectuated which claims the right of emanating laws on the birth and death of persons, deciding on who, how and when must be born and who, how and when must die. This is not only an unduly intrusion, but also a violation of the fundamental rights of the human being, above all of the weakest ones, of the voiceless and of the unborn foetus, that lives an in full human growing. The person is expropriated of his freedom to choose. 

The event of Eluana is there to warn us with this regard. It is long since this young woman is in coma, but she is alive and, like all of us, needs water and food. Therefore, it is not the matter of medicines or therapeutic obstinacy, but only of ordinary nourishment. In this specific case, we can ask ourselves: when will she wake up? We do not know. It may be today, tomorrow, within a year, after many years. Another question: How can the family take care for many years of an immovable young woman lying in bed? In the specific case of Eluana, the answer is given by the Sisters, who have been assisting her so far and who are ready to continue doing it. In other cases, the families; with sacrifice, but also with love they sustain their dear ones in difficulty, in the hope of a waking up  -a thing that has already happened in similar cases-  and of a coming back to normality.

Bishops, priests, theologians are daily questioned by this and other similar situations. Above all, the consecrated women are existentially involved in these new cultural challenges. Because of living close to the family, of the trust that the parents nurture towards them, because of the simplicity with which the youths exchange confidences with them, the consecrated women are the fittest persons to counsel, to indicate the right, moral behaviour and also, -as in the case of Eluana-, to take personal care of human beings in difficulty or abandoned by their own parents and relatives.  

The consecrated women are the merciful heart of the Church for refused children, for exploited and marginalised youths, for chronically sick persons and abandoned aged men and women. More than anybody else, they succeed in entering the mind and heart of mothers and fathers, giving them a word of consolation, as well as of discernment and guidance. Like Mary, our Mother and mistress, the consecrated can be for the faithful “magistra vitae”, not only for spiritual assistance, but also for a realised human life, in the family and society, by offering orientations on how to behave and to face the multiple proposals, which attempt to affect the human life in its blooming, in its growing and in its decline.

It is paradoxical and contradictory on one side, the maniacal attention which today’s society puts in the genetic preservation of foods, in the cure and defence of every kind of animals and, on the other hand, the superficiality with which it allows the unbridled manipulation of the human embryos, treated as simple biological material to be used at pleasure. While the genetically modified organisms are strictly refused, they become permissive before genetic alterations of the human being.   

A yes to life

For this reason, the Congregation of the Doctrine of faith, in 1987, published the Instruction Donum Vitae (22^nd February 1987), on the dignity of the embryos and on the unlawfulness of artificial fecundation. After a little more that twenty years, the same Congregation of the Holy See published a second Instruction, entitled Dignitas personae, to meet the new therapeutic perspectives.   

The Instruction, dated 8^th September, 2008, feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, intends to answer some new questions of bioethics, which provoke expectations and perplexities in vast sectors of society. It tries “to promote the formation of consciences”

(n. 10) and encourages the bio-medical research to respect the dignity of every human being and of procreation.

The instruction begins with the words Dignitas personae, a dignity that is to be recognised for every human being, from his conception up to his natural death. This fundamental principle expresses a great “Yes” to human life, which must be at the centre of the ethical reflection on the biomedical research. The Instruction is of a “doctrinal nature” (no. 1), and is expressly approved by Benedict XVI. Therefore, it belongs to the documents which participate in the ordinary ministry of Peter’s successor, to be welcomed with religious assent. (no. 37).

Preparation and structure

The preparation of the Instruction was long and laborious. In proceeding to examine some new questions, they always kept in view the scientific aspects, availing themselves of the analysis by the Pontifical Academy for Life and of a great number of experts, to confront them with the principles of Christian anthropology. The addressees are all the faithful of the Church and all those who seek the truth. In proposing principles and moral evaluation for the bio-medical research on human life, the Church “fetches light both from the reason and from faith, contributing to elaborate an integral vision of man and his vocation, capable of welcoming whatever good emerges from the work of men and from the various cultural and religious traditions, which not rarely show a great reverence for life” (no. 3).

The instruction contains three parts: the first one reminds us of some anthropological, cultural and religious aspects of fundamental importance; the second faces new problems concerning procreation; the third examines some new therapeutic proposals, which imply the manipulation of the embryo and of the human genetic patrimony

Two fundamental principles

The first part re-affirms two fundamental principles of bio-ethics. First of all, it reiterates the inalienable dignity of every human being, “The human being must be respected and treated as a person from its very conception and, therefore, from that moment we must recognise the rights of its person, among which, first of all, the inviolable right of every human being to life” (no. 4).

The second principle is the re-confirmation of matrimony as area of interpersonal love from which life is born, “The origin of human life (….) has its authentic context in matrimony and in the family, in which life is generated through an act that expresses the reciprocal love between man and woman. A truly responsible procreation for the one ho is to be born must be the fruit of marriage” (n0. 6)

The sacredness of the matrimonial acts is underlined as a reflex of the Trinitarian divine love, “The Holy Spirit, effused in the sacramental celebration, offers the Christian spouses the gift of a new communion of love, which is a living and real image of the very singular unity that makes of the Church the indivisible mystical Body of the Lord Jesus” (n0. 9).

In the ethical evaluation of some scientific results, the Church does not intend to interfere with the medical science as such, but only to remind the ethical and social responsibility of the research. The ethical value of the bio-medical ethics is measured with reference to the unconditional respect due to every human being, in all moments of its existence, as well as in safeguarding the specific character of those personal acts which transmit life.  

New problems concerning the procreation

To overcome infertility there are techniques of eterologous artificial fecundation, with the end of obtaining a human conception artificially, starting from gametes, one of which  from a different donor, instead of the couple united in matrimony; or techniques of homologous artificial fecundation to obtain a human conception artificially, starting from gametes of the two spouses united in matrimony.  Moreover, there are techniques which help the conjugal act and its fecundity; they are interventions aiming at removing the obstacles opposing natural fecundity. Finally, there is the procedure of adoptions

What to say of all this? First of all, we can consider to be lawful all the techniques that respect the right to life and to the physical integrity of every kind, the right of the couple to become father and mother only one through the other, so that the human procreation may be the fruit of the specific conjugal act of love between the two.

Therefore, the techniques which help the conjugal act and its fecundity are lawful. The medical intervention in this area is respectful of the human dignity, because it aims at helping the conjugal act to facilitate its fulfilment and to make it possible to reach its end, once that it is normally accomplished. Thus, the interventions aiming at removing the obstacles which oppose natural fertility are surely lawful and permissible. It is highly desirable to encourage, to promote and facilitate the procedure of adoptions of numerous orphan children.  It is a life that allows the spouses, who are impotent to generate children of their own, to donate their affection to the little refused and abandoned ones, who in this way find a family and a nest of love.  It is the providential encounter of two poverties which creates a complete family  with parents and children, united by the gift of welcoming and generous love. 

What, instead, about the techniques of artificial fecundation in the laboratory? The experience of these latest years proves that in the context of fecundation in vitro the number of sacrificed embryos is very high: above 80% in the most developed centres. In fact they discard the defective embryos. Some couples seek the techniques of artificial procreation with the unique scope of operating a genetic selection of their children. Finally, the technique of transfer of a major number of embryos than the desired son, in the prevision that some may go lost, actually implies a purely instrumental treatment of the embryos.  

The techniques of unlawful fecundation

Given the very high rate of abortions caused by the techniques of fecundation in vitro, they are gravely unlawful and prove eloquently how the substitution of the conjugal act with a technical procedure contributes to weaken the respect due to a human being. Respect, instead, is favoured by the intimacy of the spouses animated by conjugal love. Before the instrumentalisation of the human being to the embryo stadium, we need to repeat that God’s love does not make any difference between a newly conceived life in the womb of its mother, and the baby, or the youth, or a mature man, an aged man. He does not make any difference because in each of them He sees the imprint of his own image and similitude. This is why the magisterium of the Church has constantly proclaimed the sacred and inviolable character of every human life, from its conception up to its natural end (no. 16).

A variation of artificial fecundation is the Intra Cytoplasmic SpermInjection (ICSI). Also this technique is morally unlawful, because it operates a complete dissociation between procreation and the conjugal act, and it is actuated outside the body of the couple through gestures of third persons, whose competence and technical activity determine the success of the intervention. In this technique, life and the identity of the embryo are entrusted to the power of doctors and biologists, with the instauration of a technical dominion on the origin and destiny of the human person (no. 17).

The freezing of the embryos or “crio-conservation” also is incompatible with the respect we own to the human embryos: it presupposes their production in vitro: it exposes them to serious risks of death or of damaging their physical integrity, because a high percentage does not survive the procedure of freezing and de-freezing; it deprives them, at least temporarily, of the motherly tenderness and care; it puts them in a susceptible situation of further offences and manipulations (no. 18).

With regard to the great number of the already existing frozen embryos, we ask ourselves: what to do with them? The solutions proposed so far are morally unsatisfactory: we must notice  that the thousand embryos in state of abandonment determine a situation of irreparable injustice. Therefore, John Paul II launched an appeal to the conscience of the responsible persons in the scientific world, in particular to the doctors, so that the production of human embryos might be stopped, keeping in view that we cannot see a morally lawful way out for the human destiny of thousands and thousands of frozen embryos, which are and remain for ever titulars of the essential rights and therefore to be safeguarded juridically as human persons (no. 19).  

The Instruction gives ethical evaluations about the freezing of ovocyte, about the embryo reduction, of the pre-implantatory diagnosis, on the new forms of interception and contra-management.  Given their particular specificity, the readers are invited to read the texts of the Instruction, in order to have a more detailed information about it.  

Therapeutic proposals with manipulation of the embryo

1. Among other proposals, the Instruction considers, in its third part, first of all the genic therapy, which is the application of the techniques of the genetic engineering with a therapeutic to man, in other words, with the end of curing diseases on a genetic basis (no. 25).     There are: a somatic genic therapy, which proposes to eliminate or to reduce the genetic defects present at the level of somatic cells, and a germinal genic therapy, which aims at correcting genetic defects present in the cells of the germinal line, to the end of transmitting the therapeutic effects obtained on the subject at the eventual descendant  from the same.

         The interventions of the somatic genic therapy are, as principle, morally lawful. However, we must observe the general deontological principle, according to which, to make a therapeutic intervention  it is necessary to make sure previously that the treated subject is not exposed to  risk his health or his physical integrity, that they be excessive of disproportioned  compared to the pathology that has to be cured. It is also requested the consensus of the patient or of his legitimate representative (no. 26).

         About the germinal genic therapy, the risks connected to every genetic manipulation are significant and still little controllable, therefore, at the present stage of research, it is not morally admissible to act in such a way as the deriving potential damages may get diffused in the progeny (no. 26)  

About the hypothesis of applying the genetic engineering for a presumed end of improvement and empowering of the genetic endowment, we must observe that these manipulations would favour a eugenetic mentality, emphasising endowments appreciated by determined cultures and society, which do not constitute in themselves the human specific nature. This contrasts the fundamental truth of equality among all human beings. Moreover, in the tentative of creating a new type of man, we glimpse an ideological dimension, according to which man claims to take the place of the Creator (no. 27).

2. What to say, then, of the human clonation, namely of the asexual and agamid  of the entire human organism, to the end of producing one or more “copies” from the genetic viewpoint substantially identical to the unique progenitor?

Clonation is intrinsically unlawful, because it intends to give origin to a new human being without any connection with the act of reciprocal donation between the two spouses and, more radically, without any bond with sexuality. This circumstance creates abuses and manipulations that damage the human dignity seriously (no. 28)

About the reproductive clonation, it would impose to a clonated subject a pre-ordained genetic patrimony, submitting it to a form of biological slavery from which it could be set free with difficulty. The fact that a person claims the right of determining arbitrarily the genetic characteristics of another person, is a grave offence to the dignity of the person and the fundamental equality among men (29).

With regard to the therapeutic clonation, we must make precise that to create embryos with the proposal of destroying them, though with the intention of helping the sick, is completely incompatible with the human dignity, because it makes the existence of a human being, though at the embryo state, nothing more than an instrument to be used and destroyed. It is gravely immoral to sacrifice a human life with a therapeutic finality (no. 30).

3. The Instruction treats also the therapeutic use of the stamina cells; they are undifferentiated cells possessing two fundamental characteristics: a)the prolonged capacity of multiplying themselves without getting differentiated; b) the capacity of giving origin to progenitor cells of transit, from which highly differentiated cells descend, for instance, nervous, muscular, ematic. For the ethical evaluation, we need to consider, above all, the methods used to collect the stamina. Anyhow, numerous studies tend to accredit to the adult stamina cells results that are more positive than the embryo ones.  

There is also a tentative of ibridation with the use of the human ovocyte, to the end of extracting embryo stamina cells, without the use of human ovocyte. From the ethical viewpoint similar procedures are an offence to the dignity of the human being, because of the mixing up of human and animal genetic elements, capable of disturbing the specific identity of man (n. 33).

4. About  the searchers who use the biological material  of unlawful origin, produced outside their centre of research or that is in commerce, there is the moral exigency that there has been no complicity with the voluntary abortion and that measures have been taken to avoid the danger of scandal. To this purpose the criterion of independence formulated by some ethical committees is insufficient; in other words, to state that it would be ethically permissible the use of “biological material” of unlawful origin, that there may always be a clear separation between those who produce, freeze and cause the embryos to die, and the searchers who develop the scientific experimentation, “the duty of refusing that “biological material” (---) flows from the duty of being separated, in the exercise of the searching activity, from a legislative picture gravely unjust and of stating clearly the value of human life. Therefore, the above-quoted criterion of independence is necessary, but could be ethically insufficient” (no. 35)

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Is the moral teaching of the Church an ensemble of prohibitions? No. The Church promotes all the gifts that the Creator has granted man, such as life, knowledge, freedom, love. Unluckily, sometimes these gifts are used against the dignity of the human being, above all of the weakest and undefended. The civil society itself admits juridical-political prohibitions when for instance, it forbids every form of racism, of slavery, of unjust discrimination of women, children, sick and disabled people. The legitimacy of a prohibition is founded on the necessity of safeguarding an authentic moral good.  

Similarly, when the Church says “no” to any tentative of genetic manipulation, in reality she says a “yes” clear and convinced to the dignity of man, starting from his conception up to his natural death, “In the fatigue of discerning between good and evil, behind every “no” shines a great “yes” to the recognition of the dignity and the inalienable value of every single and unrepeatable human being called to existence”  (n. 37).

This precious reminder of the magisterium of the Church is an important subsidy for the mission of the consecrated women in favour of the Christian families.

Angelo Amato
Prefect of the Congregation for the causes of Saints
Piazza Città Leonina, 1 - 00193 Roma