In the world of medical ethics, there are several topics so controversial that they dominate the literature. Artificial reproductive technology is one of these topics. I looked at two historical pieces, as well as one version of Genesis, to examine some of the arguments surrounding artificial reproductive technology.
The first piece, Donum Vitae, discusses the Roman Catholic Church’s position on in vitro fertilization as of 1987. The arguments put forth in Donum Vitae were all extrapolated from a clearly defined set of moral principles. The first principle, “The human being must be respected-as a person-from the very first instant of his existence,” argues that all embryos are human and must therefore be treated as sacred (Crossroad 1988). This principle is interpreted to mean that no person, be that a medical professional, a parent, or another individual, may kill, harm, or endanger an embryo. This principle comes from an interpretation of religious literature by a religious authority from which they then try to justify with a biological basis. However, this is a flawed justification. They argue that when a single new cell with a unique genetic code is produced, a new human is born. There are several flaws in that train of thought. One example is single human cells (such as a single skin cell) may have a unique genetic code due to a mutation (such as the case with cancer) yet does not have a human identity. Therefore, the contrapositive argument—single cells with a unique DNA identity must have a unique human identity—cannot be true.
The second principle is a functional corollary of the first principle; medical technology may only be used in a therapeutic sense. This follows logically as this principle prohibits any sort of medicine or medical imaging that puts any person (or fetus) at risk without a sincere intention to help cure that individual. The third principle is that every child has a right to “be conceived and to be born within marriage and from marriage” (Crossroad 1988). Marriage, according to the Roman Catholic Church, must be between a man and a women. Overall, when looking at the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on medical issues, it is important to consider these three principles as these are fundamental beliefs derived from religion. Just as the Roman Catholic Church makes its decisions based on a set of criteria, so did the French government circa 1994.
In 1994, the French National Assembly passed laws regulating artificial reproductive technology based on recommendations from the French National Bioethics Committee. The policies that were chosen seemed to echo enlightenment ideas. These policies were mostly based off of two principles: preservation of family and preservation of nature. To clarify, the ideas of both family and nature differ greatly between cultures, and even within a culture, so these were the definitions held by the French National Bioethics Committee at that time. The Bioethics Committee looked at how Rousseau drew importance to the family and decided that the “bi-parental heterosexual family unit” was the proper familial unit (Ball 2000). This principle also implies that other family styles (such as single parents and homosexual parents) were a detriment. I attribute this blatant homophobic principle to the Committee’s (irrational) fear that these non-traditional family units will change or destroy the current French values system.
The second principle the French National Bioethics Committee used is the idea that policy should preserve nature. This principle is based on the erroneous logic that nature is always good. The Committee seemed to arbitrarily decide what is considered natural and justified policy based on that.
When we examine policy regarding reproductive technology, it is vital to examine these policies through the viewpoint of the policy makers (the Church or the Assembly). One must examine policy with the understanding that each groups assumes their principles are sound. Once those assumptions are made, we can somewhat account for cultural relativism. It is logical that the Roman Catholic Church disagrees with IVF. If it is heterologous IVF, it violates the child’s right to have a mother and father. If homologous IVF for married individuals, the destruction of “spare” embryos as part of IVF violates each embryo’s right to live and thus is equivalent to murder. The French restrict IVF to heterosexual couples who either have lived together for over two years or are married to prevent the violation of their established principles. Homosexual couples and single individuals were not permitted to use IVF as it violates their idea of a family. Postmenopausal woman were also not permitted to use IVF as it violates their idea of nature.
I also looked at the first two chapters of the Chabad version of Genesis with Rashi’s (a Jewish authority’s) commentary. The line that discusses procreation talks about the fetus as “one flesh” which Rashi took to interpret as coming from both the father and mother (Genesis 2:24). I see how it is possible to interpret this passage as every child must have a mother and father, but my personal interpretation is strictly biological; each child comes from a man and a woman but nothing more. Therefore based on this passage, I personally would not believe any principles exist that would ban IVF.
Overall when looking at how different groups treat IVF, looking at the specifics of each policy will only bring you back to look at the principles, or justifications, each group gives for their actions. Studying those assumptions allows us to be able to understand these cultures better than policy alone.
Zach,
I really appreciated how you incorporated using a cultural lens to read texts that we may not understand the reasoning behind at first glance. Bringing us back to Geertz’s thick description and Hamdy’s portrayal of the thought processes beneath moral judgements and decisions, I agree that the techniques proposed can be used to read and interpret unfamiliar opinions.
While I tried to use this lens to comprehend the policy makers’ rationale, I felt as though I kept noticing the word or idea of “domination” in both the book of Genesis and Donum Vitae. It struck me that I found a stark contrast in the way that each text used the term or concept. The book of Genesis uses the concept in the first chapter to give human beings “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and every other creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). This use of the concept of domination expressed as a human right encourages the idea that humans hold the destiny of other animals in the palms of their hands to be central to human nature.
Contrastingly, in Donum Vitae, the use of domination was almost exclusively in reference to the demonization and disapproval of IVF. One example of this is when the text explains that doctors and biologists are not to be trusted, and that their intervention in reproduction matters “establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person” (Crossroad 164). The negative use of the word domination is powerful and absolute, as it implies that the one who is being dominated is without any control or power to resist.
The contrasting contexts of the concept continued to challenge me while reading the texts from the viewpoints of the church. This internal battle led me to the thought: What role does language play in the spread of ideas and viewpoints through society?
Hi Zach,
I enjoyed reading your push back on the Catholic Church’s stance using ideas involving genetic code because it was something that I have never thought of before. In response to your logic — If we base ‘humanness’ on DNA, then how do we distinguish between creatures that have similar DNA to humans? How much DNA sequence needs to be formed in order for us to be considered human?
You wrote that “The second principle the French National Bioethics Committee used is the idea that policy should preserve nature. This principle is based on the erroneous logic that nature is always good,” but I personally interpreted the issue to be more on the erroneous logic that nature is always the same, or static. What do y’all think Ball is trying to say about reliance on nature?
-Pam
Thanks for your comments Zach.
I liked your contrasting of the two viewpoints from the Church and the French. While they both had strict limitations on reproductive technology, the core of their arguments were very different.
The Church tied in their religious beliefs about preserving and dignifying all manner of human life and preserving the unity of marriage. Throughout the text, I saw numerous mention of preserving the dignity of the “human” which was an interesting extreme – that even just-conceived cells could be called human. To me, I personally saw a lot of flaws with their logic. Does the unborn fetus carry as much value as the mother bearing it? Donum Vitae states that abortion is never licit, yet would there be any exception if aborting the unborn child would save the mother?
The French were insistent on the promotion of what was “natural” and “normal.” The controversial views of Marquis de Sade were even cited to promote what was natural, including incest and sodomy. Rousseau was also cited as a major factor in contributing to the viewpoints toward ART, who emphasized the bond between mother and child in a family. After some deliberation, all but heterosexual couples that had been together for at least 2 years being banned from using the technology. The pseudo-philosophical outlook the French took was entrenched in past philosophies; the question is if those philosophies are still applicable or have times changed enough that they are obsolete?
Hey Zach, thank you for a great blog post. I wanted to elaborate more on your response to Donum Vitae. You mentioned that the church’s view of what constitutes a human being is completely wrong; however, who can define what it means to be a human being? I am not necessarily saying that I agree with the church or with you, but what it means to be a human is variable from person to person and cannot be truly defined. I found that your point that the church’s definition was completely wrong does not take into account that cultural values differ and such views cannot be defined.
Additionally, the church and the French only view marriage as being between and a man and a woman. They do not recognize homosexual couples because it goes against their beliefs about what it means to be a normal family. Thus, their rules on ART are restricted to those heterosexual couples. These controversial laws are based on the ideas that man and woman are meant to reproduce, but only if they marry the opposite sex. I liked how you took an anthropological view of these readings and tried to understand their points as an account of cultural relativism. Even though we may not agree with certain points from these rulings, we cannot judge their views and must try to understand why they believe what they believe
Hi Zach,
Your blog post influenced me to go back and critique how I originally read each of these pieces. I have never interpreted religious texts in an academic context before, and I read the Vatican’s version of the Book of Genesis as the final “word,” partly because this week’s topic relates to Catholic teachings and partly because of my own personal experience as a member of the Catholic Church. I admittedly did not consider reading different versions of the text that may have been translated by or commented on by people from different religions.
I also found your perspective on interpreting policies valid in a logical sense, but question your note as to whether it is realistic to “examine policy with the understanding that each group assumes their principles to be sound.” From Ball’s article, it seems that there were various competing ideologies as to the nature of IVF treatment and the importance of maintaining a common French “tradition” or “culture” from history and around the time that the French National Bioethics Committee was deliberating new legislation. Some of Ball’s final remarks in his essay even go so far as to argue that ambiguity is important in ethical discussions, and the field of ethics evolves as new theories and interpretations constantly arise (Ball 2000, 587). For this, it is important to critique assumptions themselves while attempting to reason policies in different cultures.
In terms of reasoning policies in different cultures, the range that Catholicism and other religions is practiced around the world varies greatly. French politicians made decisions based on a country’s culture, but Catholicism writes doctrines for the world. How should these two articles be viewed differently in this context? Does it change how we interpret Ball’s arguments or those set forth by Donum Vitae?
Zach,
I really enjoyed your blog post and how you connected the readings. However, I disagreed with some of your interpretations. I think your post really emphasized the biological significance of an embryo when discussing Donum Vitae, but you did not address the question of a soul as much. The Catholic Church claims that the soul of a human exists from the moment of conception. I assume from reading your post that you disagree with this. So I am wondering at what time would you define the beginning of a human life?
Additionally, I think we need to be careful with using the term IVF to describe the views on reproductive technologies. Donum Vitae addressed more technologies other than IVF including abortion just to name one. Furthermore, the Church had different stances based on who used the technologies and for what purpose.
I found your interpretation of Ball’s work to be exceptional. I enjoyed reading how you explained the French Committee’s view. I would like to add though that it is important to realize the context that the committee was in. While it is easy to judge their decisions as right or wrong, they were attempting to figure out how to incorporate new science into an environment that may not have been prepared for it. The idea of reproductive technologies has led to a major paradigm shift and each society has coped with this in different ways.
I enjoyed reading your interpretation of Genesis as strictly biological. While this is not my view, it opened my eyes to a different way of reading a text that I had been interpreting the same way my whole life. I again am curious as to your thinking of when an embryo becomes a human being with your strict biological interpretations.
Hi Zach,
Wow. What an intellectually stimulating reading. You didn’t summarize the readings and instead dived headfirst into commentary and critical thinking.
It’s clear that you disagree with the Catholic Church’s viewpoint on the definition of the conception of a human being. Because I agree with you on the fact that IVF should be legalized and abortion should be every woman’s right, I felt myself nodding along to reading your post. However, I can’t shake the feeling that you nitpicked a single argument from the article, provided plausible and fascinating reasoning to refute it, and moved on like that one argument invalidates all of the points that the article presents. It’s also very clear that we share a substantial amount of DNA with any given organism. Mice, for example, share nearly all of human DNA. Mice technically have different DNA from another human and yet much of the same DNA so are mice human? Do they have the same rights as humans? To what extent should we define this “difference” in DNA?
Thank you for this post. It really made me question my own viewpoints and assumptions and encouraged me to think more deeply about what I read and how I understood it.
Zach, this is a great post which made me step back and think about the relationship between religion and biology as well as how these two concepts can butt heads at times. First off, I agree with your point – that singular cells with a specific genetic makeup must have a unique identity – cannot be true. The use of skins cells in your argument is quite compelling and something that I had not thought of before.
I also want to bring to light the point you make regarding medical technology and how it must not “put any person at risk without a sincere intention to help cure that individual”. In my opinion, this restricts the ability of medical technology. It is tough to come up with one, singular definition for “curing” someone. From a religious lens, it seems that this would be restoring a healthy balanced relationship between a man and woman in their ability to further reproduce, but there are various instances in which someone else can attempt to be cured while also taking on serious risk. For example, someone looking for a sex change may consider this to be their only option in being cured. A man may go through his life thinking that he should be a woman, or vice versa, and there is medical technology nowadays to make this surgery happen. While there is tremendous biological risk to this procedure, that person may consider himself to be cured afterward.
Lastly, your point about the Roman Catholic Church is interesting in the sense that they are unwilling to accept any other view than that of a child having both a mother and a father. I think that this ties back to your point when you mention the “interpretation of religious literature by a religious authority from which they then try to justify with a biological basis”. My one point about this is that religion dates back to some of the earliest of times of human existence, and since biology is somewhat building off of these religious values, it seems hard to in any way overturn what is already being preached.
Hi Zach!
I enjoyed your analysis of the readings and wanted to add to what you have already stated, as I agreed with most of your points.
In addition to what you’ve stated is the basis of the first principle, I also found that Donum Vitae’s first principle is based on what is previously stated in the reading – that all humans are an image of the Creator or God which, in turn, means that killing, harming, or endangering an embryo who is considered human would be morally repugnant. I found your argument on the basis of single human cells an interesting perspective against Donum Vitae, especially since the statements in Vitae give no leeway for new biological discoveries and you have provided an exception to the rule. One exception tends to lead to another, as is common in science, which I don’t think was considered in the reading.
The French National Assembly’s policies and laws in 1994 are, as you said, based on what these policy makers believe “nature” and “natural” are and what represents those two ideas. If a single woman wishes to be artificially inseminated, then she cannot because she does not represent what is natural in the eyes of the National Assembly. I thought the article drew a parallel with Donum Vitae’s article, as both the National Assembly and the Church seem to have firm ideas on reproductive technology – whether that is how to properly treat the embryo or how to conceive a child – and these ideas are not to be budged, even if it discounts situations and groups of people.
Thank you for your post. Well thought out. I can definitely sense that you spent a lot of time dissecting and interacting with the material
I can completely understand your argument about the Roman Catholic Church’s position. I myself have no beliefs on when life really starts. I believe in the scenario there is no real right answer, or one right belief. While I completely understand where you are coming from with this, I believe that you may be harping on one component of the author’s writings and from that completely disagreeing with it, creating a straw-man. While the author should have left no doubt to his argument, I am sure some clarifications could have been made to discount what you were saying. However, I do think it is a very well thought out argument.
I really liked how you also approached this. While we usually analyze policies that are made and study them, we typically don’t analyze the root of the policy and where their actual beliefs are coming from. I think it is a very good point that studying assumptions is much more important than the policy themselves. Assumptions are the forefront for the policy’s, and studying them would allow us to understand what their beliefs are and why they are, as well as what they are rooted in.
Hi Zach,
I thought you did a good job not only in summarizing the articles but also in incorporating your own views into the post. I can see where you come from when you talk about how genetics would play a role in determining the identity of a human. However, I felt that in Dona Vitum, the single cell only referred to the zygote that formed from fertilization rather than any new cell. Thus, I have to disagree with your argument as I feel that a zygote could be considered a human since all the cells in a human originate from that zygote.
In your discussion about Ball’s piece, I would argue against your point in saying that the French criteria for ART was more based on restoring nature rather than creating new things. They argued that it is not natural for postmenopausal to give birth and ART changes that. This is, as you mentioned, due to the fear that such new concepts would cause a collapse of their current system.
In regards to your comments on Genesis, I agree with your interpretation that a child comes from a man and woman and nothing more. Thus, I wonder how you would feel about genetic editing as the genetic code of the child is no longer completely the same to the father and mother.
Great post, Zach! I found your understanding of cultural relativism really interesting with regards to these two documents. The rulings of the Catholic Church are rooted in centuries-worth of Church tradition and Christian teachings, and as such, they can be understood within the lens of this tradition. It is not surprising that the Church has these rulings on IVF and other alternative methods of conception, and one cannot realistically be justified in personal indignation against the Church for having this particular view. The Church is expected to have a deeply spiritual understanding of biomedical techniques.
However, in regards to the French government’s legislation on IVF, the ability to see it through the lens of cultural relativism becomes more difficult. Perhaps this is because I have an incorrect understanding of the French government being rather liberal in its policies, or that it is easy to assume that government policies will be less strict and less “morally” rooted than Church policies. It was interesting to read, as you said, the blatant homophobia deeply embedded in the Assembly’s policies on IVF, especially with regards to the “natural law” justification that one may more readily expect from the Church or some other religious institution.
Hi Zach
I wanted to compliment you on your very well thought out and well written blog.
Something that I thought about as you analyzed the choices made by the French National Bioethics Committee’s decisions on what was considered natural and justified policy, what what exactly defined “Natural Law” and who had the power to do so? When comparing Ball’s article to the Genesis or Donum Vitae, it is clear that to Christian church’s it is God who declares natural law and for the church to interpret and act on this law.
Ball’s article is a little bit more intriguing, because the choices made by the French national government was not based in God’s will or religious beliefs, but rather the belief that society is only stable because of the family unit consisting of a mother and a father. This is based in Rousseau, and other Enlightenment theorists, that “bi-parental heterosexual family unit” was the proper familial unit (Ball 2000). These cultural beliefs then had the ability to influence policies regarding reproductive technology. You explained that homosexual couples and single individuals were not permitted to use IVF as it violates their idea of a family and postmenopausal woman were also not permitted to use IVF as it violates their idea of nature. My overall question regarding these readings, especially when pertaining to the French policies, is where did the basis of these ideas come from? Was it the church, was it divine power to define from God, or was it the culture that one grew up in where the definition of family or nature can originate. And does man have that power to define what is Natural Law?
Hi Zach!
Thank you for outlining the principles of the arguments for the readings clearly. I appreciate the point you brought up about how from the first moment of existence a new life is formed according to the Catholic Church, because I think that principle is really the basis for the entire argument presented in Donum Vitae. Throughout the reading, the point of ARTs tampering with the rights of an individual wouldn’t be applicable if the individual did not have some sort of humanity to them. Although, as stated in the reading, proving this is impossible, I like the points you brought up from the reading about the biological claims the church uses to support their ideas. The reading by Bell also touches on biology to support more abstract claims. The reading talks about nature and how we can look to nature in order to justify what is right and what is wrong. In nature, which is associated with what is “right”, we see reproduction in a normal way through heterosexual couple of procreative age. Both readings used a biological stance to combat biological techniques which I thought was interesting.
Hello Zach!
Thank you so much for your analytical and thoughtful response. I have a habit of diving into a text’s prerogative and dismissing my own sense of judgement. After reading your post, I am definitely reflecting on my own reaction to these opinions and feel encouraged to be more critical. I appreciated how you touched on the principles of preserving family and nature in two separate arguments and followed them up with a more zoomed-out sentiment of culture’s impact on the view of both family and nature.
Your post has raised a question for me that I am puzzled by but think is important – how can we define a human? Furthermore, what system of rules decides the bounds of what defines a whole human versus some derivative and/or small fragment from the make-up of a human?
Zach,
Thank you so much for your response. I was surprised to see you dismiss Donum Vitae as providing a flawed justification. I believe your understanding of the first principle invokes a straw man argument. I read Donum Vitae through a slightly different lens, as we must recognize that Catholic doctrine acknowledges a human soul. We can thus read a central point of their first principle given that context: “certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life.” Now, I don’t believe that what you’re saying and what I’m saying are mutually exclusive. Yet, in reading Donum Vitae, I do not deem it appropriate to scientifically and logically invalidate their basic claim because of the overly simplistic understanding that one human cell constitutes a human soul. If we are going to be scientific about it, I also don’t believe that a unicellular embryo even exists for much time at all, as the cell begins replicating immediately after conception. It is to this process of growth that I believe the Catholic Church refers to when they acknowledge a human presence at the onset of life, rather than the one celled embryo that exists for a fraction of a fraction of a second before reproducing (one of the characteristics of a life form). I apologize for clinging to this one minute aspect of your blog, as I do very much appreciate it in its entirety. I especially empathize with your argument about understanding policy from the perspective of the policy maker… this is a crucial point and definitely a recurring theme of this class (understanding perspectives). I also loved your reclaiming of Rashi’s interpretation as your own through a 21st century scientific lens, an example of keeping tradition alive by keeping it relevant. Obviously we are academics here, not traditionalists, but I did want to commend you for infusing a traditional notion into your contemporary understanding of a complex issue. Well done.
Zach,
Upon doing further research, I wanted to apologize for my lack of scientific knowledge of the processed behind IVF and also recognize the validity of your point. Apparently, it is only after 36 hours of existing as an embryo (and far longer if that embryo is frozen) that it starts to replicate, so my understanding of an embryo as a life force is certainly invalid. Yet, I maintain that I believe your dismissal of the church’s understanding of life is unwarranted, as I hold by the validity of one human cell having a human force that the church would refer to as a soul. While I concur that one human cell does not have in itself a fully formed human identity, I believe that it is extremely powerful to consider that one cell can be responsible for ultimately producing a human identity (which a skin cell cannot), and thus side with the church in its recognition of an embryo as having a human spirit. I look forward to continuing to engage in this discussion and to grow in my understanding of this topic.
I liked the points that you chose to highlight in each of the readings. I also liked your interpretation of the important lines in the book of Genesis; you chose important lines that were later discussed in Donum Vitae. As you stated, Genesis 1:27 and 1:28 are critical lines, and while it is unclear what it means that “God created humankind in his image,” 1:28 demonstrates that humans are encouraged by God himself to have dominion over other living creatures. It is also important to realize that there was an order to the way that God created the world as written in the Book of Genesis. This order was clearly made distinct by the author of the Book of Genesis as many lines in the first chapter are solely devoted to this. If humans are indeed to have dominion and human life, including those of an embryo as the Catholic Church notes, why then did God create nature and even other organisms such as “sea monsters” and “wild beasts” before humans?
I do agree with Eleni though; the word of the Catholic Church can be seen either as a simple interpretation of the Book of Genesis or as strict rules to be followed. The outlook that an individual chooses powerfully impacts his or her beliefs, morals, and values about reproductive technologies. The most important basic points outlined in Donum Vitae were that “The human being must be respected-as a person-from the very first instant of his existence” (Respect For Human Life, 147), and “Heterologous artificial fertilization is contrary to the unity of marriage, to
the dignity of the spouses, to the vocation proper to parents, and to
the child’s right to be conceived and brought into the world in marriage and from marriage” (Respect For Human Life, 159). You mentioned these points, which I applaud you for. These are two of the basic principles that the Catholic Church based its opinions of embryos, biomedical research, and third parties involved in reproductive technologies on.
As for Ball’s article, I did not agree with many of his points. Donum Vitae was a more striking article for me because it clearly establishes the position of a powerful force in global opinion – the Catholic Church. I felt that Ball’s article recycled a lot of the interpretations of the Catholic Church but with less convincing evidence. While small parts of the nation (neighborhoods, cities, states, etc.) do make up the larger whole, the use of ART cannot be seen as destabilizing. The French argue also that the family unit, consisting of heterosexual parents and their children, must be kept intact at all costs, but without the authority and weight of the word of the Catholic Church, I found it to be less impactful.
Why hello there Zach,
I appreciated you contrasting your views, rooted in biology as you said, with the views of the Catholic church and French politicians. However, I was slightly surprised when, writing about the French rationalization of restricting IVF to specific heterosexual of-age couples, you said that principle of using IVF only to mimic what is found in nature is “based on the erroneous logic that nature is always good.” Since your previous opinions seemed to be purely on a biological basis and secular, somehow stripping morality and the question of good/bad out of consideration, the sudden language of “good” and implied morality was a slight shock.
Furthermore, your other assertion that the Catholic church “argue that when a single new cell with a unique genetic code is produced, a new human is born” did not make sense to me off the text. My interpretation was that the combination of gametes produces yes, a unique cell, but ultimately the blueprints for a person. I found the following in the text on page 148 and I believe it to support my interpretation and the view of the Catholic Church: ” modem genetic science brings valuable confirmation. It has demonstrated that, from the first instant, the program is fixed as to what this living being will be: a man, this individual man with his characteristic aspects already well determined.” Your rebuttal about the argument of cancer cells and other unique genetic cells does not make sense in this context as I do not believe the church sees a cancer cell as the blueprint of a potential soul-containing vessel.
I really appreciated your blog post Zach, and look forward to reading your next one.