At Issue: Read to understand true dignity of human beings
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
For a really great Christmas present, go to http://www.usccb.org/index.shtml on the Internet and click on the newly released Vatican Instruction on Bioethics.
Though the 32-page instruction hardly caused a ripple in the secular media when it was released in Rome Dec. 12, its breathtaking clarity and reader friendly approach should make it a Christmas read to treasure and a learning experience par excellence.
The instruction – entitled “Dignitas Personae” or “The Dignity of the Person” the first on Bioethics from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in 21 years, comes as a precious gift at a time when so many of us are seriously concerned about how the new political era will impact life issues ranging from stem cells to abortion to cloning and genetic experimentation.
“Dignitas Personae” is just the reading material we need to be informed participants in the national dialogue on life.
So said Tom Lorenc, St. Mary of the Lake Parish, Lakewood.
Lorenc, a determined advocate for life who never hesitates to share his thoughts or concerns on the subject, read the document and called it a strong commentary on the “principle of life.”
The document, which has the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, was developed to provide responses to the web of complex bioethical questions that have arisen in the two decades since the congregation last addressed such concerns.
The disturbing litany includes the morning-after-pill, the IUD and RU 486 which can result in abortions, freezing embryos, which has presented our species with the horrifying conundrum of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos that are not implanted. Church ethicists used this new document to reiterate the Church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization.
Other bioethical genies let out of the bottles that should have contained them are also addressed in the document.
Among them are gene therapy, genetic enhancement and so-called designer babies – all reflecting a “eugenic mentality,” which would, the document says, ‘drive new divisions between groups of human beings.
The instruction rejects human/animal hybrid embryos and before anyone sniffs at this inclusion as just so much science fiction, do an Internet search on human/animal hybrid legislation in England and the EU, always way ahead of us in the Island of Dr. Moreau – science as horror story category.
Lorenc says the new document does a good job of addressing the very key issue of “personhood. Personhood is the issue….You’re a human being from the moment of conception. To deny personhood to a little embryo makes it convenient to deny personhood to anyone at any stage of life.”
He likens the new document to the midrash, the Hebrew tradition of expounding on the scriptures. “This is a midrash on personhood – the central issue of personhood.
An embryo is a human being – that’s the essence of the whole thing.
“Any procedure that doesn’t recognize personhood of that human being is anathema.”
We all have to remember, he said, the foundational principle that a human being is a person and needs to be treated as a person at every stage.
“It doesn’t matter what developmental stage…it is what God intends for all of us,” he said.
Though the document is long, he said, it is so very well worth reading. He noted that the intended audience is not only individual Catholics, but also doctors, scientists and medical researchers and legislators who will most certainly be called upon to consider regulating new developments in biomedical technology.
Noting that the document reiterates Church opposition to research on stem cells derived from embryos and signals support for adult stem cell research, Lorenc added: “The Church always says science and religion are compatible with each other.”
But in these supercharged times, when fast answers to complex questions often seem to get the legislative nod, its important to have the knowledge to participate in the discourse.
“This is a great and simple message,” he said of the instruction. “This document should be studied by doctors, social workers, by everyone giving counsel and advice – pre-Cana, for instance.
“This is something that people can understand. This will get through to people.”
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For a really great Christmas present, go to http://www.usccb.org/index.shtml on the Internet and click on the newly released Vatican Instruction on Bioethics.
Though the 32-page instruction hardly caused a ripple in the secular media when it was released in Rome Dec. 12, its breathtaking clarity and reader friendly approach should make it a Christmas read to treasure and a learning experience par excellence.
The instruction – entitled “Dignitas Personae” or “The Dignity of the Person” the first on Bioethics from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in 21 years, comes as a precious gift at a time when so many of us are seriously concerned about how the new political era will impact life issues ranging from stem cells to abortion to cloning and genetic experimentation.
“Dignitas Personae” is just the reading material we need to be informed participants in the national dialogue on life.
So said Tom Lorenc, St. Mary of the Lake Parish, Lakewood.
Lorenc, a determined advocate for life who never hesitates to share his thoughts or concerns on the subject, read the document and called it a strong commentary on the “principle of life.”
The document, which has the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, was developed to provide responses to the web of complex bioethical questions that have arisen in the two decades since the congregation last addressed such concerns.
The disturbing litany includes the morning-after-pill, the IUD and RU 486 which can result in abortions, freezing embryos, which has presented our species with the horrifying conundrum of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos that are not implanted. Church ethicists used this new document to reiterate the Church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization.
Other bioethical genies let out of the bottles that should have contained them are also addressed in the document.
Among them are gene therapy, genetic enhancement and so-called designer babies – all reflecting a “eugenic mentality,” which would, the document says, ‘drive new divisions between groups of human beings.
The instruction rejects human/animal hybrid embryos and before anyone sniffs at this inclusion as just so much science fiction, do an Internet search on human/animal hybrid legislation in England and the EU, always way ahead of us in the Island of Dr. Moreau – science as horror story category.
Lorenc says the new document does a good job of addressing the very key issue of “personhood. Personhood is the issue….You’re a human being from the moment of conception. To deny personhood to a little embryo makes it convenient to deny personhood to anyone at any stage of life.”
He likens the new document to the midrash, the Hebrew tradition of expounding on the scriptures. “This is a midrash on personhood – the central issue of personhood.
An embryo is a human being – that’s the essence of the whole thing.
“Any procedure that doesn’t recognize personhood of that human being is anathema.”
We all have to remember, he said, the foundational principle that a human being is a person and needs to be treated as a person at every stage.
“It doesn’t matter what developmental stage…it is what God intends for all of us,” he said.
Though the document is long, he said, it is so very well worth reading. He noted that the intended audience is not only individual Catholics, but also doctors, scientists and medical researchers and legislators who will most certainly be called upon to consider regulating new developments in biomedical technology.
Noting that the document reiterates Church opposition to research on stem cells derived from embryos and signals support for adult stem cell research, Lorenc added: “The Church always says science and religion are compatible with each other.”
But in these supercharged times, when fast answers to complex questions often seem to get the legislative nod, its important to have the knowledge to participate in the discourse.
“This is a great and simple message,” he said of the instruction. “This document should be studied by doctors, social workers, by everyone giving counsel and advice – pre-Cana, for instance.
“This is something that people can understand. This will get through to people.”
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