Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
them. In social ethics, however, Catholic teaching has always been more
inductive and flexible, outlining a general framework of justice, rights
and duties, and the common good, but leaving to different eras and
to concerned social analysts and political actors the task of applying it
concretely.
On the topic of genetic research or engineering specifically, the Church
has repeatedly denounced any interventions that deliberately destroy
embryos, which it regards as having the status of protectable persons
from the moment of conception.
26
Recent objections to cloning have also
targeted the commodification of human life and procreation that they
threaten. A statement from the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life
affirmed its commitment to the relief of human suffering, but insisted
that an embryo is a human life too, and hence a subject with rights.
Taking aim at the broader social context in which stem cell research is
encouraged, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the academy, char-
acterized the U.S. government as “yielding to the pressures of the indus-
tries that want to commercialize human health.”
27
In an August 29, 2000
speech to transplant surgeons in Rome, Pope John Paul II applauded
attempts to remedy organ failure, but excluded the growing of new tissue
that had its origin in embryonic stem cells. Improved health is not the
only criterion of medical morality, he argued, since all human endeavors
must meet the broader and higher standard of “the integral good of the
human person.” Including the embryo in the category “person,” the pope
excluded human cloning, the destruction of embryos, and the use of
embryonic cells as means to better medical treatment.
28
Nonetheless, Catholic teaching has never retracted the essentially open
attitude to “genetic manipulation” expressed by the pope in 1983. In an
October speech of that year to the World Medical Association, he
endorsed therapeutic measures as in principle desirable, provided that
they tend to the “real promotion of the personal well-being of man,
without harming his integrity or worsening his life conditions,” and he
did not exclude the possibility even of genetic enhancement.
29
Given the
drift of the papal concerns about economic exploitation, however,
perhaps the question of genetic engineering should today be placed more
firmly within a common good framework that includes global market
forces and the difficulty of regulation to ensure fair international partic-
ipation and distributive justice.
