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4.
FUNDAMENTAL CRITERIA FOR A MORAL JUDGMENT
The fundamental values connected with the
techniques of artificial human procreation are two: the life of the human being
called into existence and the special nature of the transmission of human life
in marriage. The moral judgment on such methods of artificial procreation must
therefore be formulated in reference to these values.
Physical life, with which the course of
human life in the world begins, certainly does not itself contain the whole of
a person's value, nor does it represent the supreme good of man who is called
to eternal life. However it does constitute in a certain way the
"fundamental " value of life, precisely because upon this physical
life all the other values of the person are based and developed.(13) The inviolability of the innocent human being's right to life
"from the moment of conception until death" (14) is a sign and requirement of the very inviolability of the person to
whom the Creator has given the gift of life. By comparison with the
transmission of other forms of life in the universe, the transmission of human
life has a special character of its own, which derives from the special nature
of the human person. "The transmission of human life is entrusted by
nature to a personal and conscious act and as such is subject to the all-holy
laws of God: immutable and inviolable laws which must be recognized and
observed. For this reason one cannot use means and follow methods which could
be licit in the transmission of the life of plants and animals" (15)
Advances in technology have now made it
possible to procreate apart from sexual relations through the meeting in
vitro of the germ-cells previously taken from the man and the woman. But
what is technically possible is not for that very reason morally admissible.
Rational reflection on the fundamental values of life and of human procreation
is therefore indispensable for formulating a moral evaluation of such
technological interventions on a human being from the first stages of his
development.
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