On Friday, December 12, 2008, the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) released its long-awaited document on bioethics that responds to “new problems regarding procreation” and “new procedures involving the manipulation of embryos and the human genetic patrimony.” (http://www.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/Dignitas_Personae.pdf. Called Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of a Person), the Instruction is seen as the sequel to Donum vitae (The Gift of Life), another document on bioethics published by the CDF over twenty years ago on February 22, 1987.
Dignitas Personae is divided into three parts flanked by a brief introduction and a conclusion.
In the first part, the CDF summarizes the basic moral principles that have to guide an individual “in light both of reason and of faith” as he faces the moral questions raised by technological advances that impact either the human embryo or human reproduction. There are two basic moral criteria. First, we need to respect the intrinsic dignity and inviolability of the human person from the very first moment of his existence (no. 4). Second, we need to recognize that human procreation, because of the dignity of the human person, should only occur within the context of marriage and only as a result of an act — the conjugal act — that expresses the reciprocal love between a man and a woman (no. 6).
In the second part, the CDF responds to several moral questions raised by advances in technology that impact human reproduction. With regard to medical interventions that treat infertility, the CDF embraces techniques that “act as an aid to the conjugal act and its fertility,” especially interventions that seek to remove obstacles to natural fertilization (no. 12). However, the Congregation also condemns many techniques associated with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) because they substitute for the conjugal act between husband and wife. As Dignitas Personae reiterates, the Catholic Church teaches that it is ethically unacceptable to dissociate procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act. IVF is especially objectionable because it “very frequently involves the deliberate destruction of embryos” (no. 14). Dignitas Personae is also critical of cryopreservation, the technology used to freeze human embryos, because it is “incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos; it presupposes their production in vitro; it exposes them to the serious risk of death or physical harm, since a high percentage does not survive the process of freezing and thawing; it deprives them at least temporarily of maternal reception and gestation; it places them in a situation in which they are susceptible to further offense and manipulation” (no. 18). The final part of this second section, highlights the moral problems raised by drugs and other technical means that seek to prevent a pregnancy by destroying a human embryo either before he implants himself into his mother’s womb (interceptive methods) or after he is implanted (contragestive methods). Interceptive methods include the intrauterine device (IUD) and certain forms of the “morning after pill,” while contragestive methods include RU-486 and methotrexate (no. 23).
In the third part of Dignitas Personae, the CDF deals with technology that manipulates the human embryo and/or human inheritance. First, the document distinguishes two forms of gene therapy. Procedures that genetically alter somatic cells — the cells in the human body other than sperm and eggs — are in principle morally licit as long as they aim to cure genetic disease and they are only performed after the patient has given his informed consent (no. 26). In contrast, procedures that genetically alter the reproductive cells of a patient are morally problematic because at the present time they would inevitably harm the individual’s children because of technological limitations. The CDF moves on to deal with human cloning and stem cells. The Church unequivocally condemns all attempts to create and destroy human embryos even if these efforts are to cures the sick because this would be completely incompatible with human dignity (no. 30). It “makes the existence of a human being at the embryonic stage nothing more than a means to be used and destroyed. It is gravely immoral to sacrifice a human life for therapeutic ends” (no. 30). Techniques that try to create human/animal embryos are morally illicit for the same reason. Finally, Dignitas Personae teaches that Christians and other individuals of good conscience need to distance themselves from a scientific and a medical culture that use biological material derived from morally illicit origins, including tissues and cells obtained from abortions and the destruction of human embryos (no. 35). This would avoid any cooperation with evil or scandal. However, parents may still use vaccines obtained with cells derived from aborted fetuses as long as they make known their moral disagreement and ask that their healthcare system make other vaccines available (no. 35).
In the conclusion of Dignitas Personae, the CDF reminds Christians and all persons of good conscience that the Church is not anti-science. Rather the Church seeks to protect the dignity of the human person: “The fulfillment of this duty implies courageous opposition to all those practices which result in grave and unjust discrimination against unborn human beings, who have the dignity of a person, created like others in the image of God. Behind every ‘no’ in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great ‘yes’ to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence” (no. 37).
[Editor’s note: Please see also Fr. Austriaco’s article on this subject in our Bioethics channel. Click here for Highlights of the New Bioethics Document, Dignitas Personae.]
