The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s passage on the “Respect for Human Life” (1987), dubbed Donum Vitae, Latin for “the gift (or donation) of life,” offers the Roman Catholic Church’s outlook on a number of biomedical issues. I thought it was important to put the “Respect for Human Life” document into perspective in order to understand it fully. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) is the oldest congregation of the Roman Curia, which is the “administrative apparatus of the Holy See and central body through which the [Pope] conducts the affairs of the universal Catholic Church.”1 In modern times, it acts to defend the church and the Catholic doctrine from heresy. Interestingly, this institution was formerly the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, otherwise known as the Roman Inquisition, which persecuted Galileo and Copernicus for their scientific theories on heliocentrism.1 A new document by the CDF was released in 2008, dubbed the Dignitas Personae (personal dignity or worth), and voices its perspective on “selective reduction, prenatal diagnosis, preimplantation diagnosis, in vitro fertilization, cryopreservation, embryo transfer, genetic engineering, [and] embryo donation.” The new document highlights continued opposition to contraception and abortion, and specifically mentions female condoms and the morning-after pill.2
Though the Moses’ first book, Genesis, seems to give humans “dominion over the Earth,” the Vatican wants to propose limitations on that dominion and even discusses at length the negotiations it seems to have with the realm of science and technology as both provenance of new possibilities, but also a potential source of sinful overindulgence. The document highlights the central value of human life and the human body, and underscores it as a principle of the both the church and the paper. This rationale is used to take positions on reproductive technologies, such as being against prenatal testing if it will lead to abortion, but allowing it if it leads to “therapeutic, medical, or surgical” assistance to the fetus/embryo; or being against artificial fertilization from a donor and surrogate motherhood because both break the holy sanctity of marriage. The paper also highlights a similar tenant to the medical Hippocratic oath, to “do no harm.” The passages suggest that to try to heal and to better is permissible (reminiscent of the “Good Samaritan” doctrine in law and medicine, which discourages inaction by “reducing liability if unintended consequences result from one’s help”).3
When reading Donum Vitae, I had an enduring question on my mind—does any of this matter, and how much? Since several of the Pope’s rulings don’t make it to the United States, there must be an extent to which the Church’s sway does not hold. As we can see from the first two chapters of Genesis, the Christian holy scripture is a dated one, and needs constant reinterpretation when faced with issues such as men having the same number of ribs as women (it was a belief that men were one rib short since Adam used one to create Eve).
Though the Catholic Church’s outlook is critical for understanding the behavior of a large segment of the population, I hesitate to let it play such a large role by itself holding a degree of responsibility. Religious authorities largely play a game of interpretation. This same church decries homosexuality as a result of Leviticus 18:22 in the Bible, but then seemingly fails to take notice of the condemnation of tattoos in Leviticus 19:28 on the following page. It is for this reason that I have a hard time finding the value of religiously ethical intervention in a multi-religious society as in the United States. This passage was incredibly well-written, especially considering it was probably originally written in Italian or Latin, and very articulately enumerates the logic behind its stances.
(As an aside, the fluent and eloquent way that it was written honestly surprised me. I have spent a good amount of time debating religion and religious politics, and the people with whom I debated were usually not well-read in scripture or very knowledgeable in general, outside the buzzword hot topic cliches such as homosexuality and abortion. I have never read primary literature from the Catholic Church, and have enjoyed seeing an academic level defense).
The author Ball highlights that children were once a means of legitimizing a marriage, likely because it is a physical manifestation of a marriage, whereas love and virginity are emotions and abstractions. However, in 17th century France, the family institution went from a private matter to a moral and spiritual institution, and the “child” became a focal point for contemporary philosophy and legislative scrutiny. Rousseau is heavily quoted, as citing the family unit as a “prototype for the [country]”. Rosseau continues to be used to communicate a progressive scorn for the state’s patriarchal involvement in family dynamics and politics, painting the government as an oppressive tyrant into the daily lives of its subjects. This central dogma of “volontée générale,” or general will (of the people), propels much of Ball’s argument that has been largely weighted on Renaissance philosophy. A theme common throughout Ball’s passage is that of “Natural Law,” and a focus that despite ART’s, the will of nature should be kept in mind. When examined closely, Rosseau took a shaky, muddily unclear position that didn’t seem to sway the argument in either direction—but perhaps that was the point.
In 1994, the French Parliament voted to allow all technology to “enable procreation outside the natural process” as a remedy for infertility, and limited this to heterosexual couples who have been married for two years, and bans post-mortem and post-menopausal insemination. The French legislators against ART’s in during the creation of this law feared a sudden explosion in its use, leading to a “[destabilization] of the entire French social system.” As of 2012, 1 in 100 babies born in France are in vitro, and its society has yet to crumble.
The unescapable value of the CDF’s Donum Vitae is that ethics is not black and white as Ball seems to suggest, but rather fifty shades of gray. Ball’s stress on Renaissance-era thinking pushes one to believe that in events of gray, one should err on the side of the people. The current ethics boards of fields outside of reproductive technologies are fairly arbitrary. Members of these committees are assembled…somehow…by someone, who likely has their own interests and moral code. These committee members subsequently rule on practice and protocol in scores of disciplines—medicine, research, the workspace, the court of law, politics. There is value in an independent body to have its own opinion during changing times of science. Many of our parents or grandparents are still uneasy or outright against accepted norms of modern (youth) culture, such as interracial and homosexual relationships; I state this because as our elders appear to ‘behind the times,’ we will also likely do the same to the next generation. The next topic of social debate might be marrying an AI program, and I patiently await the opinions of the Pontiff and Rousseau (reincarnate).
Questions:
- Extent to which the Vatican’s ruling should influence government laws for those not observing the Roman Catholicism?
- Given your answer to the previous question, would your opinion change if the ethics of all religions come into conflict with scientific experts and ethical panels on an issue of a new technology—let’s say cloning—how do you think the two could reconcile?
- Why do you think the first two chapters of Genesis were included in this week’s reading?
- What is the government’s role when approached with the forces of conflicting ethics?
- Should issues like these be offered to a public referendum to be decided by popular vote? Would that solve our problem
Outside Sources
Unit 3:
Ayman, I thought your blog was well written and I definitely think you analyzed the “Donum Vitae” article well. I would have liked to see more analysis of the first two chapters of Genesis and how they connect to the other two readings though. To answer your question about if ethical issues, such as assisted reproduction, should be decided by popular vote, I have to say no. My reasoning for it is as follows.
The issue of assisted reproduction technologies is an argument only a very small portion of the population fully understands; this is because of the complex intertwine of moral and legal matters. I feel that the majority of a population in any country would actually be under educated on a topic like this, so allowing them to cast a vote regarding ethical issues would be risky and ultimately not solve the problem concerning assisted reproduction methods.
I do feel my position is strong, but I would be willing to hear other’s beliefs on the topic. Maybe I have missed something that other individuals have thought of.
Petar,
So what are you recommending? Should these decisions be left with elected officials, who. after all, are meant to represent the public? Or are you suggesting some other way of making decisions based on demonstrated technical expertise? What are the costs and benefits of these approaches?
Your blog post was a nice depiction of the problems surrounding the debate of ART. I like how you reflected on the articles rather than merely just summarizing. You integrated a discussion of the genesis chapters and the Catholic Church article very well. The context you provided on CDF was definitely helpful to my understanding of the article. Your transition between that discussion and your thoughts on Ball’s article could be strengthened by an idea that ties the two together. You say that Ball suggests ethics is black and white, but I disagree. I think Ball says the legislators during the bioethics debates of 1994 maintained this black and white view, but Ball disagrees with this interpretation of Rousseau’s views. For example, Ball says that “The 1994 bioethics laws reflected a static vision of family and nature that was more in line with protecting tradition than the more dynamic reality. Constrained by the need to formulate a consensus and provide set rules for citizens to follow, the legislators draft that build on the Enlightenment tradition but missed some important nuances of Enlightenment thought (Ball 586-587).”
Unit 3 Blog response ^^
Agreed
Hey Ayman, it’s Hannah from your Freshman Hall.
This week’s readings and your summary brought up an interesting point about interpretation. Both the Donum Vitae and the article on the 1994 French Bioethics Debates rely heavily on the interpretation of an outdated document; whether it be writings by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau or from the OG novelist, Moses.
So, I am going to take your question of “why does this matter” and phrase it a little differently. These religious laws may not matter to you or to the majority of US citizens, but ultimately we are trying to define a human life and extend this definition to how we use and regulate reproductive technologies. The Bible is one of the biggest resources in understanding the beginning of life, therefore it is relevant in this discussion.
Perhaps what you mean–and correct me if I’m wrong–is how do you justify using such outdated material to support modern arguments in legislature and in ethics? We are, in fact, only relying on interpretation, which allows for people to use others’ arguments in a way that pushes their own agenda. Who knows, maybe Rousseau would happily adopt the newer types of family structures into his arguments on the family as the prototype of the state?
You even mention that perhaps Rousseau took a muddled stance in defining nature as it relates to man on purpose; perhaps this purpose is so that his work could be cited to support any number of moral and ethical disagreements that come up in the future. Clearly he succeeded in making his way into a modern argument about ART 200 years post-mortem.
Ball makes an important point at the end of her article regarding this idea of interpretation: “Thus, the legislators justified limiting access to ART, and attempted to contain the threat of “reproductive anarchy,” with an appeal to a rather limited and static view of nature.” (585) If we are relying on interpretations–and often in the case of the Bible interpretations of interpretations–as the primary source of evidence to back an ethical argument, how much clout does the argument really hold?
This was a useful response, pushing Ayman to clarify his thinking and working through the issues yourself as you did so. Good work.
Hi Ayman,
I enjoyed reading your blog post this week. Stylistically, I like how you were able to tie everything together, turning it into one whole post instead of separate summaries. Your post is very well written and has a nice flow to it, which makes reading it easy and very enjoyable.
I think the way you end the post with an open-ended question looking into the future is really good and thought provoking. Oftentimes when thinking about these issues we tend to only look at the past and the present without regarding how they might affect the future. Your example of marriage between a person and AI might seem just as unthinkable today as marriage between two men or two women was in the past. Looking further into the future might make legal and moral statements from the past, some of which are already regarded as controversial today, even more controversial and less relevant.
I agree with you that the point of reading Genesis was to draw on the possible inconsistency as man is supposed to have dominion over animals. Technically, yes, humans are animals, but I don’t think that we are to be included in this definition. “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth” (Genesis 1:26). I also agree that there is some level of debatability in the Church’s judgment of what in the Bible is to be preached upon. Much of that, however, is decided by the interpretations of the text. In Leviticus 19:28, the “Do not tattoo yourself” is thought to refer to the common practice of the time to brand a slave with its owner’s name, or to brand a god’s name to one’s skin, so it is understandable that it was excluded from the teaching of the Church. I also am a little confused as to your surprise that the piece from the Church was well written. The Catholic Church has been very highly educated for a long time, notably Saint Pope John Paul II who was fluent in eight languages.
In response to your questions, I think that the government should not be influenced by the Catholic Church — that is why we have a separation of Church and State. I think that seeking input from the Vatican is not a bad idea, but ultimately the legislators make a decision of what is best for constituents. Science is focused on whether or not something can be done, while religions are focused on morals; at the end of the day, it comes down to beliefs. One can choose to follow a religion, or one can utilize the advancements of science, when the two don’t overlap (Science and religion are not contradictory, and that is made known in Donum Vitae. The only major time that science is looked down upon by the Catholic Church is when it fails to respect human life.). While it seems that the chapter of Genesis were included for the purpose of showing the hypocrisy of giving man dominion and then taking it away, I do not think that Genesis is referring to man himself when talking about the wild animals. Therefore, we do not have dominion over all aspects of human nature.
Great response, Ben. But I wonder if things can be as clear cut as you imagine by invoking the Separation doctrine. To the extent that governments do need to make determinations on matters of moral import, why should they and how can they really ignore the deliberations of religious traditions that have contributed to these conversations? Does Separation require such a decision? And if so, are politicians left with nothing but narrow utilitarian positions to consider?
Dear Ayman,
Excellent! I am pleased to have provided you an introduction into high level discussions by devotees of a religious tradition! I think you ask an important question about the authority of a religious tradition in a plural society, and I am glad you raised it. This is something we will discuss in depth in class both this week and next. On the other hand, I don’t think you should be so dismissive about “interpretation.” What else is there, in any field of inquiry? All policy, no matter whether it claims religious provenance, is grounded in the interpretation of facts and values. Personally, there are elements of the Catholic position that appeal to me as a non-Christian, and that raises other kinds of interested questions. Finally, on a purely grammatical level, I assume it was a typo that you wrote “tenant.” What you meant to say was “tenet.”