[照片說明] A six-week human embryo.
– FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
The word “person” is the name of dignity (“nomen dignitatis”). St Thomas Aquinas explains that the word “dignity” is reserved exclusively to the most excellent beings, namely, God, angels and humans: “Person means that which is most perfect in the whole of nature” (Persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura).
RESPECT THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN EMBRYO
According to Felisa Elizondo Aragon, the words person, dignity and respect form a sequence. She explains that the word “respect” is connected with the word “dignity,” and the word “dignity,” moreover, is closely linked to the word “rights.” Respect evokes reverence, esteem, and recognition. Respect of every human person means recognition of his/her dignity. Because he or she is a human being, the human embryo ought to be respected by all other human beings. Thus, respect of every human being, or of the human person, is the fundamental principle of any kind of ethics, including bioethics, or the ethics of life.
Respect for others is manifested in the practice of the ethical principles of justice and love. To be just with the embryo means to respect his dignity, his life and the integrity of his body, and of his/her right to adequate health care. Full human respect of all others, including human embryos, goes beyond justice and enters the orbit of love. As members of the human family, humans ought to be in solidarity with all (solidarity is justice plus love).
From the perspective of faith, the excellence of human dignity refers to his/her origin (from God), end (God), and nature (image of God). For the Christian, the foundation of human dignity is God who, out of love, creates every human being, redeems him/her through Christ, and renews him or her in the Holy Spirit. According to Christian tradition, the three sources of human dignity is that every human being is (1) the image of God, (2) a child of God, and (3) destined to eternal life with Him. Truly, the human person possesses “a singular dignity”; he/she is “the only creature that God has wanted for its own sake” (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes; John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor).
RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF THE HUMAN EMBRYO
Every human being possesses unique dignity and rights. Human rights derive from human dignity. In fact, human dignity may be described as the possession of fundamental human rights, which are innate to every person and, therefore, cannot be lost until after the death of the person. The human embryo has the same dignity as other human beings and, therefore, possesses the same rights, which are – as John XXIII says – “universal, inviolable and inalienable.”
In this context, Pope Francis writes: “We continue to tolerate that some consider themselves more human than others, as if they had been born with greater rights.” He adds poignantly: “More zeal is shown in protecting other species than in defending the dignity which all human beings share in equal measure” (Laudato Si’, 90). Sadly, we have to add, the human embryo is not considered at all by some scientists equal to all other human beings – to born children, for instance.
It is important to note that human rights and duties are co-relative: “To one man’s right there corresponds a duty in all other persons, the duty, namely, of acknowledging and respecting the right in question” (Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris). Thus, human dignity and rights are “indissolubly linked.” The human embryo, however, does not have duties attached to rights: he or she is not yet able to exercise his intellect and will. However, all other human beings capable of exercising their intellect and will have the duty to respect the dignity and rights of the embryo (R. Lucas Lucas).
THREE ESSENTIAL RIGHTS
Speaking of the rights of the human embryo, we need to underline three: the right to life, the right to bodily integrity and the right to adequate health care. The embryo’s right to life is the most fundamental: without it the other rights do not matter. John Paul II writes: “The inviolability of the person finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life.” The basic principle of a truly consistent life-ethic is this: human life – the right to life – must be defended from the moment of conception (against abortion) to natural death (against euthanasia and the death penalty). Human life, then, must be defended from its beginning, in conception, to its end, with natural death, and also in between beginning and end: against forced poverty, and violence, and injustice, and the exploitation of the poor and of the environment.
From the viewpoint of faith, life is sacred, a gift of God who is sacred, holy: “To me, therefore, you shall be sacred; for I the Lord am sacred” (Lv 20:26). Like the life of other human beings, the life of the embryo ought not be prolonged uselessly, but allowed to end when end comes, not earlier (as in embryonic euthanasia), and not later (through useless, unethical treatment prolonging not life but dying).
Human embryos are not respected when they are eliminated as means in the search for cure for other human beings; or when they are eliminated because they do not have or will not have upon birth the so-called “quality of life” required by others; or when they do not possess the characteristics demanded by their parents – genetic or legal –, or when they have a certain illness and immoral eugenics is negatively applied to them through selective abortion. Health care professionals must be healers, and when healing is not possible, they continue caring this time through palliative or comfort care. They must never directly kill.
Strong words to ponder: “What cannot be tolerated is that public institutions and rich countries pretend to supply eugenic irresponsibility imposing by force to the poor countries eugenics of death, legalizing abortion, euthanasia and the massive sterilization to control world population” (Niceto Blazquez).
The embryo’s right to bodily integrity means respect for his/her body, which is not a thing, nor a commodity but an essential component of the human person, of his/her presence in the world. Vatican II states: “Each human person, in his absolutely unique singularity, is constituted not only by his spirit, but by his body as well. Thus, in the body and through the body, one touches the person himself in his concrete reality. To respect the dignity of man consequently amounts to safeguarding this identity of the person, who is ‘corpore et anima unus’ [one in body and soul” (Gaudium et Spes).
The human embryo (like any other human person) has a right to adequate health care, beginning with a “decent minimum” that millions do not yet have. From the ethical perspective, this right to health care is universal, but in reality, it is not: while billions are spent on experimentation and research that at times are not even substantially significant, millions of human beings, including embryos, do not have primary health care.
Respecting the right of the embryos to adequate health care entails to give them reasonable health care, and, in the first place, not harm them. The basic ethical principle of health care ethics is Primum non nocere [First, do not harm]. Furthermore – let me add – the human embryo has the right to be born within marriage as fruit of the loving conjugal act of his/her parents.
We see the human embryo as a unit, a component of body and soul, a rational and emotional animal, an individual person, a son or daughter of God, a brother or sister in Christ.
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