Part V: Resources

1. Source documents and Recommended Reading

“Donum Vitae[1]: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation. Replies to Certain Questions of the Day”

Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987.

“The child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage: it is through the secure and recognized relationship to his own parents that the child can discover his own identity and achieve his own proper human development.”

The document, Donum Vitae, from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presents one of the most systematic and comprehensive explanations for the pro-life position against artificial interventions in human reproduction. It was published in 1987, as the IVF industry was becoming prominent in many countries.

Its essential premise of the pro-life movement with regard to artificial procreation is summed up in a single sentence: “The child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage: it is through the secure and recognized relationship to his own parents that the child can discover his own identity and achieve his own proper human development.”

It clearly lays down the nature of the issues and offers comprehensive arguments for the pro-life position. It makes clear connections with and refers frequently to other, previous Catholic documents on related issues such as those on the nature of marriage and the family, artificial contraception and abortion. This makes it especially useful to Catholics making the case against new reproductive technologies to other Catholics, who frequently are unfamiliar with the Catholic teaching on the subject.

For non-Catholics and for those making the case outside religious circles, the document serves as an invaluable starting point in understanding the problem. Since it was published over twenty years ago, the issues have expanded, but have not changed in their essential substance and even those specific practises of the research industry which were not directly addressed in Donum Vitae can be usefully approached using its principles.

The Nuremberg Code

Internationally recognized directives for medical or other research using living human beings as test subjects that was developed following the revelation of Nazi atrocities on interned citizens and prisoners of war.

The Nuremberg Code clauses are:

• The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.

This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

• The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

• The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

• The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

• No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.

• The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

• Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

• The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.

• During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.

• During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

“What is Bioethics?”[2]

By Dr. Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

A comprehensive examination by an expert in the field, of the normative system of ethics currently in use in most hospitals in the western world. Dr. Irving has made detailed analyses of legislation governing the new reproductive technologies and related research around the world and has concluded that this utilitarian-based system is at work in all of them. She concludes that Bioethics is a system that is completely incompatible with traditional Natural Law-based medical and research ethics. Her book, “What is Bioethics” is basic reading for anyone wanting to understand the current situation and its origins. The full text is available online from various sources. It is published along with many of Dr. Irving’s articles on bioethics and biotechnologies at the website of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission. http://www.all.org/abac/index.htm.

Excerpt:

"A small error in the beginning leads to a multitude of errors in the end." St. Thomas Aquinas.

I. Introduction

There is a strange phenomenon I have encountered over the last several years which I hope to at least identify with this essay. It is the apparent belief that bioethics is somehow the same as, or to be equated with, ethics per se, or at least with medical ethics per se. I have even heard it referred to as Roman Catholic medical ethics per se. Repeatedly, when I ask a group to define "bioethics," I usually get the same sort of response. I hope with this essay to disenfranchise people of this belief.

Contrary to "popular opinion," bioethics, as predominantly practiced today -- especially as embedded in formal governmental regulations, state laws and a myriad of other documents, committees, guidelines, guidebooks, etc., around the world¹ -- is not the same thing as "ethics per se." Academically it is actually a sub-field of ethics, and stands alongside many other theories of ethics, e.g., Kantian deontology, Millsean utilitarianism, casuistry, natural law, egoism, situation ethics, relativism, and various forms of theological ethics, etc. And like all ethical theories, bioethics is by no means "neutral" -- there is no such thing as a "neutral ethics." In fact, bioethics defines itself as a normative ethical theory -- i.e., it takes a stand on what is right or wrong.

Nor is bioethics to be equated with "medical ethics," as that term is still generally understood. Nor is it the same as Roman Catholic medical ethics, or any other such subsystem of ethics that could be used to determine the rightness and wrongness of human actions within the medical context.

As we will see, bioethics understood as "principlism" is an academic theory of ethics which was formally articulated for the first time in 1978 by the Congressionally-mandated 11-member National Commission in their Belmont Report. That Report, as Congressionally mandated, identified three bioethics principles: respect for persons, justice and beneficence. (As will be demonstrated below, the Commission defined these three bioethics principles in less-than-traditional terms). Nor is bioethics restricted to the medical context. Nor has bioethics ever even considered abortion a serious issue of debate (although the definitions of a "human being" and of a "human person" concretized in the Roe v. Wade decision has reverberated throughout the bioethics literature since then -- especially in the issues concerning human embryo and foetal research). At least this much must be clear before anyone enters these public "bioethics" dialogues.

My purpose in this paper is simply to provide historical confirmation of what bioethics is, who the Founders, theorists and practitioners are, identify just some of the major issues addressed (particularly those concerning research using human embryos and foetuses), and touch on some of the more salient inherent problems of and concerns about this "theory." As the formal body of bioethics literature is enormous -- extending over 30 years or more -- it will be impossible in this essay to properly evaluate in detail all of the ramifications of this "bioethics edifice."

My method will be primarily historical -- in terms of relating, only in the briefest of outline form, the short but extensively referenced and hectic history leading up to the actual articulation of the three bioethics principles of autonomy, justice and beneficence in the National Commission's Belmont Report. Because many of you are probably not familiar with those who have and still play major roles in bioethics, I will list as many of them as is reasonably feasible in the main text.

Pro-life 101 : A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively.

By Scott Klusendorf

The book that systematically presents Scott Klusendorf’s methods of making the pro-life case, whether regarding abortion or the Early Life Issues, using reason and science. $7.00 (Booklet, 69 pages)

It and other pro-life apologetics material can be purchased online at

http://prolifetraining.com/Pro-Life_Products.htm

The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution.

Henry Friedlander

Chapel Hill and London: The North Carolina University Press, 1995.

Friedlander’s book is one of the most thorough and chilling analyses of the philosophical underpinnings of the eugenics movement that led to the Nazi Holocaust. To understand the larger picture involved in the current revival of eugenics in the field of biotechnology, Origins of Nazi Genocide is invaluable.

---

[1] The full text is included in the Appendices and can be found online at:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[2] It can be downloaded in its entirety at

http://www.hospicepatients.org/prof-dianne-irving-whatisbioethics.html