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3.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND PROCEDURES
IN THE BIOMEDICAL FIELD
Which moral criteria must be applied in order
to clarify the problems posed today in the field of biomedicine? The answer to
this question presupposes a proper idea of the nature of the human person in
his bodily dimension.
For it is only in keeping with his true
nature that the human person can achieve self-realization as a "unified
totality":(9) and this nature is at the same time corporal and
spiritual. By virtue of its substantial union with a spiritual soul, the human
body cannot be considered as a mere complex of tissues, organs and functions,
nor can it be evaluated in the same way as the body of animals; rather it is a
constitutive part of the person who manifests and expresses himself through it.
The natural moral law expresses and lays down the purposes, rights and duties
which are based upon the bodily and spiritual nature of the human person.
Therefore this law cannot be thought of as simply a set of norms on the
biological level; rather it must be defined as the rational order whereby man
is called by the Creator to direct and regulate his life and actions and in
particular to make use of his own body.(10) A first consequence can be deduced from these
principles: an intervention on the human body affects not only the tissues, the
organs and their functions but also involves the person himself on different
levels. It involves, therefore, perhaps in an implicit but nonetheless real
way, a moral significance and responsibility. Pope John Paul II forcefully
reaffirmed this to the World Medical Association when he said: "Each human
person, in his absolutely unique singularity, is constituted not only by his
spirit, but by his body as well. Thus, in the body and through the body, one
touches the person himself in his concrete reality. To respect the dignity of
man consequently amounts to safeguarding this identity of the man 'corpore
et anima unus', as the Second Vatican Council says (Gaudium et Spes,
14, par.1). It is on the basis of this anthropological vision that one is to
find the fundamental criteria for decision-making in the case of procedures
which are not strictly therapeutic, as, for example, those aimed at the
improvement of the human biological condition".(11)
Applied biology and medicine work together
for the integral good of human life when they come to the aid of a person
stricken by illness and infirmity and when they respect his or her dignity as a
creature of God. No biologist or doctor can reasonably claim, by virtue of his
scientific competence, to be able to decide on people's origin and destiny.
This norm must be applied in a particular way in the field of sexuality and
procreation, in which man and woman actualize the fundamental values of love
and life. God, who is love and life, has inscribed in man and woman the
vocation to share in a special way in his mystery of personal communion and in
his work as Creator and Father.(12) For this reason marriage possesses specific goods
and values in its union and in procreation which cannot be likened to those
existing in lower forms of life. Such values and meanings are of the personal
order and determine from the moral point of view the meaning and limits of
artificial interventions on procreation and on the origin of human life. These
interventions are not to be rejected on the grounds that they are artificial.
As such, they bear witness to the possibilities of the art of medicine. But
they must be given a moral evaluation in reference to the dignity of the human
person, who is called to realize his vocation from God to the gift of love and
the gift of life.
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