Our People

“Cloning, stem cells, RU486 and the rest: contemporary issues in bioethics,”

Dialogue for Young Aduults Group
St Francis Xavier Lavender Bay

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
5/2/2006

Few yrs ago MJA invited some experts to speculate on where we will go with love, life & sex in the years ahead

• IVF providers Robert Jansen & Carl Wood argued that we have for decades now been gradually unravelling ancient connections between love, life & sex & that in the years ahead we will separate them altogether: just as “the contraceptive pill has assisted the development of recreational sex”, they wrote, so IVF will enable such ‘unorthodox’ but advantageous practices as single & lesbian parenting, eugenics & designer babies
• whole panoply of sexual options including “virtual sex” with a computer-generated 3-D image will be the way of the future; natural sex & esp natural conception be seen as altogether too unpredictable &… unhygienic.
• entrepreneurs of lucrative embryo industry always on lookout for ways to extend their market & thus to break down any lingering taboos against disintegration of life-making from love-making or against taking of early human lives: any caution dismissed as ‘religious’ & therefore not be taken seriously in modern, secular community; any government regulation or professional ‘interference’ is deplored
• marriage-based natural family & sanctity of life, until now recognized in internat & national laws & supported in umpteen ways by culture & institutions are, on this view, obsolete

In case you think this is mere fantasy of IVF industry might consider report in week before Xmas of review of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 & the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002 conducted under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Lockhart who died within days of issuing report

• Lockhart Report is ethically very ‘thin’ indeed, but it is thick with recommendations of new moral adventives free of constraints
• despite fact that Ausn Parl voted in 2002 unanimously in favour of a ban on all human cloning, despite fact that UN passed a similar resolution as recently as March 05, & despite fact that Ausn Gvt supported UN resolution, Lockhart Committee reported – unanimously – in favour of legalising cloning, as long as the cloned embryos are destroyed within 2 weeks of creation
• also (unanimously) recommended legalisation of manufacture of: animal-human crosses, human embryos with multiple human parents or only one, & fresh IVF embryos, all for specific purpose of destructive experimentation
• these matters now go to Fed & State Gvts for legislation: few would have foreseen that Lockhart Committee would be making proposals so completely at odds with Ausn community attitudes & more universal ethical principles
• Report resorts to quite brazen Orwellian ‘newspeak’ when suggests that Parl redefine embryo so as to exclude early embryo from definition & thus from even minimal legal protection
• at one point the Report chillingly describes human embryos as mere “cellular extensions” of adults rather than nascent human beings in their own right: similar language to recent science fiction films The Island starring Ewan McGregor & Scarlett Johanssen, where…

Third very contemp example is debate over RU486: this is drug which, taken in conjunction with Prostaglanidin drug, can induce a home or chemical abortion instead of surgical abortion

• Bill to shift it from class of drugs which can only be imported for general use as abortifacient drugs with permission of Health Minister, into ordinary class of therapeutic goods which usual bureaucrats can approve for general use; Senate Committee; submissions; vote this week?!

People can only take such a cavalier attitude to human reproduction & such a callous attitude to early human lives that result if they have already swallowed range of views about human person & morality

• such articles, reports & gvt bills emerge from, & are to some extent rep of, enormous social & cultural shift of past few decades: not all of it has been bad by any means: we have for instance made progress in our und of dignity & rights of women & children, importance of love & intimacy in M&F, positive values of sex
• but amongst more problematical features with which a Cath-Xn vision of human person, relationships & ethics must now contend I would mention few:
  
  1. individualism which privatizes sexuality, values & morality: orientations & values are now seen as personal choices, made acc to taste; freedom or autonomy now seen as freedom from God, Nature, big institutions, each other, even own natures
     - anything which restricts choice, incl commitments like M&F, or absolutes such as inviolability or sanctity of life, or demands of social justice & common good, seen on this account as the enemy of happiness: I must be free to do my own thing, unobstructed by anything or anybody
  2. consumer mentality, whereby everything, even the body, sexuality, children & early human life are planned, manufactured, quality-controlled, exchanged, traded, destroyed, with consent of adults
     
     • sex becomes a recreational activity & fertility a customer choice: like most consumer goods, we want sex often & enjoyably & with no strings attached; if you are not having sex regularly & in various ways, made to feel repressed or sad in some way
     • sex supermarket or sex-mart both over-estimates the importance of sex (as if no-one could be happy who had not had sex in the last few days) & trivialises or under-estimates its power (as if it were no more humanly significant than toileting)
     • babies likewise are a consumer choice, so that tech used to make or break, to have or to dispose of, at will
       
  3. consequence of individualism & consumerism has been a reluctance to engage in self-sacrifice or commit to long-term obligations to God or others
     
     • this, I recognize, is only part of picture, but it is I think a significant part of why in Australia, as in most first world countries, the ‘vocations crisis’ in M&F life is graver even than that for clergy & religious: fewer & fewer people are deciding to marry at all; marry much later, outside of church, & much less likely to stay together
     • have few if any children, & many of those children will grow up in fragmented or complicated families
     • all this presents a massive social challenge as well as a tragedy for many individuals, including people we all know & love
     • sadly our culture tells young people to experiment sexually with multiple partners & kinds of sex, supposedly ‘safely’ (that is with a condom), & to live with several partners for short or extended periods, in order to have broad sexual experience & to seek an elusive ‘compatibility’ before or instead of marriage
     • wisdom of the age is that this means people going into marriage will know what they are doing when they do so & so be more likely to succeed: sociological evidence is in opp direction: those who cohabit are much less likely to marry at all & those cohabiters who do marry have radically reduced marital ‘sticking power’
     • reasons are complex but one that is clear is that young people are being habituated in non-commitment: having seen many relationships fail they are afraid to commit; then they spend years in temporary commitments or non-commitments, learning how to have sexual relations & even how to live together without giving themselves unconditionally to the other
     • in a world in which nothing is for life’ any more, relationships, jobs, houses, ideals, young people are being conditioned to live a life in which everything is temporary, conditional, revisable: a life without any life-long commitments
       
  4. related cultural shift has occurred with respect to children who are no longer presumed to be ord part of life & esp of coupling
     
     • ‘safe sex’, in mod world, is condomised sex, & that’s not just for HIV-AIDS prevention but also for baby prevention
     • condomisation of sex & demonisation of children tend to go hand in hand: in a ‘contra-ceptive’ or ‘contra-life’ culture we are socialized not to love our bodies, life & children but rather to fear our fertility, to withhold it even from our spouses, to cauterize it temporarily or permanently
     • in the process our civilization is becoming literally sterile
     • & in process 90,000 babies killed by abortion each yr in Aus & 90,000 women added to list of those who have suffered an abortion
     • meanwhile we keep adding to ways of doing this & excuses for doing it as early human life is cheapened into a mere resource or even an enemy of our happiness

Cath Church has a long & ongoing tradition of directly caring for health & welfare of women & children, men & families, as well as advocacy for social policy that seeks to promote & protect the life & health of every member of the human family

• we sponsor oldest & largest network of healthcare institutions in world & are largest non-government provider of healthcare in Aus: so we walk the talk
• Caths hold strong beliefs about dignity of human person, as well intrinsic value of bodily life & health, procreation & parenthood, human rights & responsibilities; of course not monopoly of Caths
• summary
  • life is always a good, one of great & inestimable value
    • no bad condition can lessen its intrinsic goodness, dignity or inviolability
    • no personal or social benefit can justify its destruction
    • God is the Lord of life & commands reverence & love for the life of every person
      
  • the direct killing of an innocent human being—whether as an end in itself or as a means to a good end—is always gravely immoral; thus Church opposes
  • abortion
  • abortifacient drugs
  • embryo experimentation
  • genetic screening with a view to aborting the handicapped
  • infanticide of handicapped or other unwanted babies
  • suicide
  • euthanasia
  • (increasingly) war & capital punishment
    
  • complexity of responsibility in this area: the objective evil of killing does not necessarily indicate a grave sin on the part of every perpetrator
  • various pressures draw or drive people to violent solutions to their problems
  • particular pressures suffered by pregnant women, the depressed, terminally ill & frail elderly, & those around them
  • but the Church remains committed to preaching ‘the Gospel of Life’ & to championing the cause of the victims of ‘the culture of death’
    
  • must distinguish direct from indirect abortion & euthanasia from appropriate withdrawals of treatment & palliative care
  • people should take reasonable measures to protect & promote their own & others’ health
  • importance of healthcare ministry
  • Church opposes unwarranted attacks upon or misuses of the body such as
    • substance abuse
    • direct sterilisation whether temporary or permanent
    • IVF & surrogacy
    • trade in organs
    • most fœtal tissue research
  • Church supports morally appropriate
    • healthy life-styles
    • therapeutic surgical & drug procedures
    • organ transplants
    • gene therapy