Italian referendum on assisted reproduction: Pope Benedict XVI supports Card. Ruini

On May 30, Pope Benedict XVI took the first official step in supporting the efforts of the Italian episcopal conference to convince Italians to abstain on the four referendums foreseen around the 12-13 June on assisted reproduction (read the previous posts). He spoke on the occurrence of the General Assembly of Italian bishops

Pope Benedict XVI said that the bishops were « engaged to illuminate and motivate the choices of catholics and of all the citizens as regards the referendum on assisted reproduction. It is precisely in its clarity and its concreteness that this engagement of yours is sign of the sollicitude of true shepherds, who are good for each human being who can never be reduced to a means but is always an end as teaches us the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel, and as teaches us even human reason. In a such engagement which is part of the mission and of the duty of the shepherds, I am close to you » (our translation). The original text (in Italian) may be found here: http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/16615.php?index=16615&lang=it

This intervention of Benedict XVI gives two important signals as to the future policy of the Catholic Church on matters of bioethics. It is self-evident that it will continue along the lines written by John-Paul II in favour of the defence of life.

First, if the first month of Benedict XVI’s papacy has been marked by a relative sobriety in public expression on matters of society, the Pope shows that the Church is going to have a say in the public debate, even if that means "intefering" with secular politics as are charging the opponents. The growing absence of political voice in the European political forum which may carry the message of the Church obliges the latter to take part itself to the debate.

Throwing the Pope’s weight into the question of assisted reproduction means that the Church considers the referendum on assisted reproduction as a test of its capacity to carry the day on ethical debates when there is no viable voice to voice its message in the political field.

Secondly, if the Pope is going to be less outspoken (on the contrary of his predecessor) on matters of everyday politics and of justice, he intends to keep loud and clear the voice of the Church in matters of ethics and of morals, when they come to the political ground.

In short, this confirms perfectly what I had wrote in a previous post: by electing Benedict XVI, the Church has gained an infatigable defensor of life.

Cardinal Ruini, for his part, recalled the arguments for calling to abstain from voting, and he made a series of interesting points (you may read the account given by Magister over here. We might recall that we examined in detail some of these arguments in a previous post, and we are synthesizing them hereunder.

1° Abstaining is not disengaging from political life, but opposing in a clear and efficient way to a logic which endangers human and moral foundations of our civilty.

2° Voting « no », because it helps to join the quorum, is an involuntary aid to the supporters of the referendum. The only efficient way to oppose the referendum is to abstain.

3° The Church is not against science and progress; however it wishes that science be at the service of the integral good of the man. Hence, the reasons moving to oppose the referendum are not only basic ethical reasons, but also the principle of precaution.

4° Unity within the Church was stressed, with also the intervention of numerous authorities who expressed support for the vision of the Church.

5° The Church is not opposed to research on multipotent stem cells, which does not imply the destruction of embryos.

6° As for those who contest the right of the Church to speak out on the referendum, fighting against stem cell research does not place the Church in the past, but it places it among those who work for the future.

The arguments of Cardinal Ruini are very interesting in that they associate a very subtle argumentation with secular elements, and it recalls at the same time that there is another path for science. These arguments have been often neglected by the medias, and were it not for the Church, they would never have been cited in the public debate.

The stem cell policy of the Bush administration

Today, London’s Financial Times ran a critical column this week-end on the policy of the Bush administration as regards funding for stem cells research.

Actually, the U.S. House of the Representatives passed this week, 238 to 194 a bill authorizing the use of unused frozen embryos in fertility clinics for research. The result of the vote might appear astonishing since there is Republican majority in both House and Senate. However, a part of the Republicans, namely the « centrist » republicans voted with the Democrats, disagreeing on the policy of the Bush administration. Indeed, in 2001, with the rationale that stem cell research destroys life as does abortion (I explained that in an earlier post about the refrendum held in Italy), President Bush did withhold public funding from researches on stem cells.

Nevertheless, argued the columnist, there is a limit to President Bush’s attempts to ban biotechnologic researches: the thirst of Americans for managing one’s fertility which makes it very unlikely that legislators may ever ban at a Federal or State level research on stem cells, or the possibility of creating chimeras (animal beings with human genetic components). Indeed, it appeared that the National Academy of Sciences expressed concern for the possibility of creating animals gifted with human intelligence thanks to the inadvertent effect of some genes...

The concern of authorities for the question of cloning prompts rightly some questions by the columnist of the Financial Times on the discrepancy between the « world’s loudest arguments » against stem cell research and « the world’s laxest rules ».

The reply might be found in US history. The problematic history of the relations between the States and the Federal State especially after the Secession war in the late 1800 has led to a relationship made of a lot of defiance which characterizes the daily life of the relations within the country. Hence, a certain unwillingness of seeing the Federal level intefering at the State level. Another characteristic is that typically american relationship which binds together so closely economic spheres of influence with the politic world, and the pressure of the electors who are after « eternal life ». How could a legislator decide against such powerful lobbies who hold his (or her) re-election in hands?

Italian referendum on assisted reproduction: discussing the appeal to abstain by the Italian bishops

As I wrote in an earlier post, a referendum is to be held shortly on the 12th and 13th June in Italy, on assisted reproduction and on stem cell research.

I had then exposed the position of the Catholic Church, and notably that Cardinal Ruini called Italians to abstain from voting, to try and avoid that the referendum obtains the 50 % participation necessary for the referendum to be valid. You may find his position here: http://www.chiesacattolica.it/pls/cci_new/consultazione.mostra_pagina?id_pagina=2318
(warning: all the links are in Italian). However, here is a synthesis in English: http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=35728

It ought to be precised for the sake of completeness that the political world was rather split on what to recommend to the electors. To give an example, instructions for voting ranged from recommending abstention, as did most of the Catholic-related movements, to voting four yes, passing by the whole range of the different options.

The campaign was marked in a quite latin way by all sorts of excesses from the part of the supporters of the referendum, who, for a lady CEO even went to promising one day salary to her employees who would bring back the evidence that they have gone to vote. And personnalities from the entertainement world also joined the fray, such as the actress Monica Belluci who called to vote "yes".

On the side of the opponents to the referendum, there was a quiet but efficient pressure of the Church to bring all representative Catholics to adhere to the position of Cardinal Ruini. However, there was a number of Catholics of left who have taken some distances, beginning with the leader of the left coalition the former president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, who announced that he would go to vote « as an adult Catholic ». Sandro Magister, whose excellent and well-informed blog I already quoted, inferred that Prodi considered those Catholics who were not going to vote as not being « adult ». You may read a rather critical appraisal of the Christian left by the ACLI (Christian Workers Union) by following this link http://www.acli.it/archivio_del_sito/editorialehomearchiviato.asp?idarticolo=160

Other partisans have taken up the traditional argument of abstention being an attack against democracy. The argument may be discussed, actually. When you consider that democracy is not any more the place of open debate and of discussion that was foreseen by its theoreticians such as Jurgen Habermas or John Rawls, the pertinence of participating in a ballot may be questioned.

Actually, if one believes in the legitimacy of parliamentarian democracy, one then firmly believes that the Members of Parliament are elected to vote laws, in the limits of what is legitimate - and that requires then confronting the laws voted with the Common Good.

The proponents of the referendum have argumented that not to go to vote would be the greatest insult to democracy so far. How to analyse that argument?

First, the referendum targets an act that was voted in 2004 by a clear majority in the parliament. So, in fact, the proponents of the referendum are acting against their view of democracy - since they are protesting against a legitimate act and an act legally adopted by Parliament. Nevertheless, should they prevail in the referendum, the same persons who denounce an act just adopted by Parliament, would insist that democracy requires that their opponents respect the verdict of the referendum and thus... « democracy ». It is an interesting example of viewing democracy according to one’s best interests... But from my experience in Belgium, a very perverse and subtle way of carrying the day for the proponents of bioethical aberrations, since any rational dialogue is impossible along those lines.

Nevertheless, the abstention recommended by Cardinal Ruini did not express any judgement on the value of referendum democracy, or contempt for democracy. It was simply that he found that the best way of exposing the lack of legitimacy of this referendum was to expose its failure to get the quorum.

In the second place, it might be worth recalling that democracy as a system, alone, is an empty shell. A democratic State, to be viable, should be based on a view of what is the Common Good for the country and the population. When a life is destroyed for the benefit of another, it becomes a true attack against Common Good, in that a potential member of the Human community is reduced to an infra-human status, and denied protection for its existence - the reader will have noticed that I did not use the term « life ».

Giuliano Amato, another of the left leaders who support voting for the referendum wrote in an article published in Il Corriere della Sera, the Milanese lead newspaper, that an embryo that had to be destroyed, could « donate » its cells to help save another life. Two elements are missed by Amato: firstly that the embryo has no say in the case, since it can never take part in the debate over its future. If it could take part to the debate, it is probable that it would strongly advocate to be left living... since at such a basic level of development, the only consideration that might be of importance for an embryo is living its life, and continuing its development. Secondly, in the end, it means however turning a being into an object. And whatever the philosophical or religious concepts on the embryo might be, everyone may agree that there is the potential for a life in an embryo, and that the embryo exists, after all.


Another more deep question is that of the legitimacy of a referendum. Traditional political theory considers that it is the supreme representation of the popular will, and that thus it holds a greater legitimacy than parliamentary mechanisms. Most constitutionalists consider that for that reason, referendum should be conserved for truly great occasions, such as... the ratification of a constitution. A couple of reflections on this theory:

1° It is known that masses seldom understand the question as it is put to them, and tend to reply according to their greater or lesser sympathy for the government in place. Hence a referendum is not the expression of direct democracy, but an occasion open to let all frustrations influence and provoke replies completely distinct from the questions that are asked. Hence, the campaign of left activists against the European constitution. Hence also the « no » vote to the French referendum by some campaigners because... the EU opened the way for the adhesion of Turkey.

2° Referendum should never be a means of using popular movements against the Common Good. In a society so vulnerable to influence by the medias and to demagogy, referendum cannot be a valid mean of adopting statutes.

An Italian lawyer, Marco Olivetti produced a detailed explanation of why abstention was the correct choice in the referendum.
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=22418

He reaffirmed later, in another article, that there were only two serious alternatives: voting "yes" or abstaining. He notably pointed out that in the past 15 years, in Italy, 5 referendums on 8 were defeated by abstention.

I’ll conclude by recalling the position of the principal Italian parties on the referendum (I might be mistaken on one account or the other, so if you see any mistake, please point it out to me as Angelo has just done):


AN (Alleanza Nazionale), right: Liberty of vote to its members. Gianfranco Fini, the Chairman of the party did however announce 1° that he would vote; 2° that he would vote 3 x « yes », with some doubts on whether to vote "no" to heterologous IVF (with the gametes of a person exterior to the couple benefitting of IVF).

Forza Italia (center right and party of the Prime minister Mr. Berlusconi ): no consign of vote. Berlusconi refused to indicate how he would (or would not) vote, allegedly not to influence the vote.

Margherita (center left): liberty of vote, though its leader, Rutelli, supported the law being attacked by the referendum.

Ulivo (coalition of center left, but not a party as such): Mr. Prodi announced that he would be voting « as an adult Catholic », but that he would be voting 4 x « no ».

Democratici di Sinistra (left): 4 x yes.

Radicali (left): 4 x « yes ». It is the party at the origins of the referendum, with two of its top campaigners beign the most active in favour of voting and of voting yes: Emma Bonino and Marco Panella (who is a MEP). Both are known for their controversial stances on about every controversial subject that there might be in European politics (drugs, euthanasia, stem cells, etc...).


Rifondazione Communista (far left): 4 x « yes ».

The associative sector, as far as it is closely or distantly related to the Catholic Church has progressively taken positions in favour of abstention.

I have taken into account the comments of Angelo (to whom I am quite grateful for pointing out my blunders).

CHILDREN SOLD TO HOMOSEXUALS BY SURROGATE MOTHERS: THE NEW SLAVE MARKET OF BELGIUM ON THE VERGE OF OPENING

A recent event has marked spirits in Belgium recently. The media made recently known that a Belgian surrogate mother had « auctioned » her child on the internet to a Dutch heterosexual couple against 15.000 EUR.

In the origins, the Flemish mother of three had concluded a contract with a married couple who wished to have a baby. She first asked 10.000 EUR, but the parties then settled for a lesser sum and she had her medical expenses reimbursed by the couple. She was then inseminated with the sperm of the husband. Then, towards the later part of the pregnancy, she told the heterosexual couple that the child was « lost ». According to accounts, she then proposed to a « couple » of Dutch homosexuals to « sell » them the child - the homosexuals apparently also only reimbursed her medical costs.

She then changed her mind on put her child « on auction » to the most offering, though it does not appear that the child was put on sale on a web site as early reports have infered. Though the transaction is illegal in civil law and would be deemed contrary to public order according to the current case law in Belgium, the State authorities have little power to act, since the act is not punished under the Belgian criminal law. At the latest news, the Prosecutor of Oudenarde (in Flanders) were looking for the possibility of prosecuting the parents under the incrimination of art. 417 quinquies of the Belgian penal code, which punishes "any treatment causing (...) in the eyes of another or {in the eyes of the person itself} a serious humiliation".

However, the surrogate mother would have no possibility of enforcing her contract if the adoptive parents would refuse to pay.

The news created a certain turmoil in the Belgian society. A number of Belgian Members of Parliament announced plans to develop a legislation around the phenomenon. The most astounding around this event was the direction in which the Belgian parties were directing themselves...

A Senator of the VLD (Flemish liberal party) announced that... it wished to authorize the practice. The French-speaking equivalent, the MR announced that it was opposed to the carrying mothers but wished to foresee exceptions for sterile couples.

The Sp.a party (Flemish Socialists) came out with an idea even more absurd: they wished to authorize the practice of surrogate mothers, and to extend the authorization to homosexual couples who desire to adopt children. That is the birth of a new slave market in Belgium: a market where unborn children are to be sold to the most offering. Since the greatest part of the demand on the « market » comes from homosexuals, one can see where this leads society. Again, as for cloning and euthanasia, Belgium is a legal « no man’s land » where the lack of rules leads to absurdities arising.

It seems that the situation is even worse in the US, since about 23.000 babies are already born from surrogate mothers in the States. The cost is also higher: about 100.000 $ per child. On these 23.000 births only 60 cases came before courts, with only a few states forbidding the practice. Speaking of a "legal no man's land"...

THERAPEUTICAL CLONING: BIOETHICAL PARADOXES OF MEDIA COVERAGE

THERAPEUTICAL CLONING: BIOETHICAL PARADOXES OF MEDIA COVERAGE


Last week, in the field of bioethics, the top story was the first successful human therapeutical cloning and the development of stem cells announced by a British scientific team. Unanimously saluted by the press as a success for science, thereapeutical cloning has been at the heart of heated bioethics controversies these last years.

But maybe, let us recall first what is therapeutical cloning. The process is simple: take an ovule from a lady donor, enucleate it (empty it of its genetic content which is haploid - i.e. it contains only half of the genetic information necessary to make an individual). Then a cell is taken from an adult individual, the DNA is prelevated from that cell, and introduced into the empty ovule. An electric stimulation is then sufficient to start the process of development of an embryo up to the stage of a blastocyte (a cluster of undifferentiated cells which characterises the human embryo in the first days of its development). The target of the scientists is to interrupt the development of the embryo at that stage, extract those stem cells and possibly use them for therapeutical use (grafts, etc).

As one can see there are a number of ethical problems which arise, and which justify the opposition of the Catholic Church to this type of experiences: in the first place, one is creating life without need (the embryo), a life which is then destroyed in an utilitarian goal, to use its very components. The argument of the proponents of stem cell research has been that you can’t qualify an undifferentiated cluster of cells of « life », and that hence it is open to make experiments on the subject. For the Catholic Church, based on the advancement of science, there are good grounds to believe that life begins from the very beginning.

Jurgen Habermas, the German philosopher who is often quoted as the maître à penser of the secular activists has been himself having second thoughts about stem cell experimentation. In one of his most recent works, he conceded that the embryo had a right to be taken into account in the deliberation of a democratic society. This concern for the embryo also motivated the Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini to call Italians to abstain from voting on the referendums on assisted reproduction planned in the beginning of June.

A paradox was that the success in this experimentation brought unanimous applause in international press, some newspapers such as the French Le Monde regretting that therapeutical cloning researches were forbidden in France. Not one newspaper devoted some lines to questionning the new relationship to human being that was being introduced by this experimentation: that of seing second rate beings used as reserve of « exchange pieces » . It must be admitted however that most of the newspapers made reference to the resistances of the Church towards therapeutical cloning.

However, this media reaction illustrates in a painful manner the responsibility which faces journalists. Most people are not specialist of bioethics and even less are specialist of science to understand the stakes in this case. They rely heavily on the media to get a grasp of these subjects. It is undoubtable that the media which favour such an unilateral view of the question, by putting the stress on the possible (and as yet hypothetical) advantages of therapeutical cloning, contribute to fashion in a way the public opinion.

What was quietly left away from public knowledge was the fact that the embryo must be destroyed in order for the stem cells to be prelevated.

In turn, opinion polls on people whose minds are impressed with the favourable comments of the press will show broad popular support for therapeutical cloning. Hence, modern mass media may become true instruments of propaganda if sufficient care is not taken to show also the drawbacks of such controversial techniques.

The case of «saviour babies »

A recent decision by the British House of the Lords has liberated the last obstacle on the road of the creation of what one calls commonly « saviour babies ».

In the case, this is of interest for families where one of the living children presents a genetic nature deficiency, or a sickness necessitating a transplant of marrow (for example to treat a leukaemia) and where there are no genetically compatible donor.

In Belgium, the VUB ( secular Flemish University) announced the birth of the two first « saviour babies ».

In these cases, using in vitro fertilization, physicians have conceived the idea to create embryos, and then to select those that, genetically, would be the closest to the sick child, to implant it and continue a normal pregnancy. On its birth, marrow is taken from the baby to cure the sick child. These are especially families originating from the Mediterranean basin who may use this technique, because they have a higher occurrence of these types of problems.

Two techniques are used : the in vitro fertilization and the diagnosis prior to implantation. Legally, the two techniques pose few problems, in general, because they are accepted in two circumstances: firstly, infertility of the couple, secondly, a strong probability of a genetic sickness occurring in the offsprings. Here, nevertheless, the two techniques are diverted their original goal so as to be used not for the well intrinsic of the child to born - what in itself raises already ethical problems - but well for the purpose to assist an other child. The changes in legislation are that the use of IVF is reimbursed by Social Security for this use.

The question that appears then is the bioethical analysis of the situation. We know that the first duty of the physician is summarized by the Latin formula primum non nocere. In this case, we have the subordination of a being yet to be born, to its usefulness for another, that is to say, its brother or its sick sister. Indeed, this child would not see life and would not be implanted if its genetic character is not strictly compatible with the sick child...

Can one then say therefore that primum non nocere is respected as regards the « saviour babies »? A reply in two moments is required. 1° It is not nocive, to strictly speak, to the saviour babies to be given life, but the creation of life for the simple goal of curing another child is disputable. 2° It is nocive, on the other hand, to the child to the extent that its existence is all ordered to its utility for the sick child. On the other hand, the punction of marrow inflicts to the « saviour baby » useless discomfort, or risks without any benefit for himself.

From a philosophical point of view, the question becomes more delicate: how to conceive this subordination of the individual to its usefulness for another? It is here that Paul Ricoeur, the great Christian and French philosopher who is deceased this weekend, had well pointed out the danger for the « I » of subordinating the ye to its interests, instead of trying to favor its autonomy.

In this context, it is not surprising that the first saviour babies have been born in Belgium: this country, by adopting a legislation authorizing euthanasia, has already sufficiently made clear its contempt for the protection of the most vulnerable beings...

A referendum organized in Italy on assisted reproduction and stem cells research

In 2004, the "legge 40" or "Act n° 40" was passed by the Italian parliament to juggle the growing disorder born from the absence of legislation in Italy on assisted reproduction.

A campaign mounted by the Italian radicals of Marco Panella led then to the organization by popular initiative of a referendum to abrogate that "Act n° 40". (Italy foresees a system of legislation by referendum provided a certain number of persons sign up asking for legal modification). You may read an interview of Marco Panella on the site of the radical party, over here: http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print_right.php?func=detail&par=12810

The referedum seeks to end the interdiction of experimenting on human embryos, the interdition of selection prior to implantation, and the limit on the number of embryos which could be implanted. The referendum also seeks to eliminate the interdiction of heterologous fertilization (i.e. fertilization of embryos with gametes from donors exterior to the couple seeking assisted reproduction). The referendum is submitted to a double condition to be effective: firstly, it should have a quorum of the majority of the persons inscribed on electoral lists; secondly it should have a majority of the voters voting "yes".

In this context, heated debates have started in Italy over whether observing Catholics should vote "yes", should vote "no" or should abstain. It was the latter option that Cardinal Ruini, the Chair of the Conference of Italian Bishops chose. He called Italians to abstain from voting at the referendum.

The calculation is simple: while there is always a number of persons in Italy who would not be going to vote, it would be harder for observing catholics to go to vote "no", rather than abstain. So the goal of not letting the referendum get the required quorum is easier to reach than a "no" vote. The national sport among Italian catholics is now of knowing who is going to take what position as regards abstention. Most Catholics of influence have however progressively announced that they were going to abstain.

You may want to visit the blog of Sandro Magister, a known specialist of Church affairs on L'espresso to follow the question as it developed the last months. You may find the blog here: http://blog.espressonline.it/weblog/stories.php?topic=03/04/09/3080386

For additional information on this question read this article on a Catholic site: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1720

A policeman's blog... Knowing the feelings of the law enforcer

A short blog to commend another one: http://coppersblog.blogspot.com/

This blog is maintained by a British policeman, who gives his own view of what it is to fight crime... It is much interesting for the specialist of police violence, because it gives an insight into the minds of the men on the field.

And maybe then, one can get on and try to work with these men or ladies and understand how they cope with pressure, and when there is danger for them as well as for the person they've arrested.

This blog is a bit pessimistic, on the whole, but that is the case when one is always confronted with crime as part and parcel of one's work.

An article of Henri Atlan on human cloning... and his reading of the Jewish tradition as regards cloning... And a conference by the same Atlan

To continue in some way your reflection on the views of Henri Atlan, I am giving you here the link to a site where he speaks of the Jewish tradition applied to cloning. You may read the article (in French) over here: http://ghansel.free.fr/clone.html

If you understand spoken French, and you wish to hear Henri Atland defending his views, you may click on this link to hear a conference by the latter before the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a high place of French intelligentsia. I give you two warnings: first, I have not heard the conference myself, and I do not in any way share the views of the author. The second warning is that it takes about 22 MB to download as an mp3 file (just to change from those habitual pirated music you download on Kazaa or other p2p softwares...). Get the file here: http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/audio/2003_03_24_atlan.mp3

If you make a small google search on Henri Atlan and "utérus artificiel", you may be astounded as the media hype around this idea of which the author himself admits that the researches are only at a primitive stage. This tells a lot of media campaigning to change perceptions in the people.

A Brave New World of Aldous Huxley...or the « mad scientist » complex

Thursday 12 May 2005, in the morning on the French radio France-Inter a biologist, Henri Atlan, who is also a specialist of Kabbale, was interviewed. I had to study his texts during my own bioethics studies, because he was a friend of a lecturer at the UCL, Mrs. Baum (who, I am opening a parenthesis, had a liking for all the weirdest « scientific » theories, and went up to justifying reproductive human cloning).

The book this biologist came to present spoke of researches in the field of prospective science, and notably of an « artificial uterus », which would enable humans embryos and fetuses to be grown outside of a woman’s womb. This is an idea which appears already in a famous anticipation fiction of Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World. You may read the whole book by Huxley online here: http://somaweb.org/w/sub/Brave%20New%20World%20fulltext.html

According to Atlan, the problem was being approached under two angles: the first was that of scientists seeking to perfect incubators so as to allow great prematures to survive, under 24 weeks (the absolute limit for viability nowadays). The second angle was that of studying how to maintain alive uterus cells in vitro in order for them to grow out and form an artificial uterus.

One of the problems in the discussion of Atlan was precisely that his starting point was ideological: he made it clear that he was seeking to suppress the « curse » contained in the Bible (Genesis) which explains that as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, God told to the woman:

I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;

in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; (Gen., 3, v. 16)

There is a problem when scientists imagine they have accounts to settle with God. In the first place, in an era where people have taken to consider sacred texts with a historical eye, and beyond its primary meaning, Mr. Atlan betrays the dangers of his too litteral interpretation of a sacred text. Ancients sought to explain the pain in the birth by an answer attributing the reason for the woman’s pain to an ancient malediction. And it might also be construed as a poetic explanation to the fallibility and fragility of human existence.

Mr. Atlan (maybe betraying his kabbalistic training there) took the text in its first meaning, its litteral meaning, but he would certainly be most astonished if you compared him to the orthodox Jews or Muslims of the Wahabit sect. I refer the readers of this blog to this interesting site for an exegesis (Catholic) on the meaning of the passage of Genesis quoted by Atlan: http://biblescripture.net/First.html It explains how the passage does not mean "curse", but hope! I particularly commend the theological references in the endnotes.

The second problem is that science is not there to settle personal accounts with God. It is there to help humanity to progress, not to act upon feelings.

The journalist, Stéphane Paoli, went even further with his (secrete) dreams by asking : « is it then the end of paradise and/or hell ?» The secrete dream of secular activists (and France-Inter is a nest of them) is precisely of putting an end to what they view as dangerous myths for the advancement of man - i.e. religions as a whole. Despite these shortcomings, and the all too frequent reports of journalists who tend to confound fact and opinion I must confess to finding that radio about the only French radio which may be tolerably be listened to. Maybe because I seldom hear intellectual subjects being considered on other radios. The parenthesis is closed.

It is maybe a Promothean dream, of being able to master life from its beginning to its end, but it misses one important factor. The human being has not overcome the one decisive factor: the fact that he is destined to have a limited existence, and that he is vulnerable. However long time you may maintain your existence with new cures, you remain a poor human vulnerable to the hand of Fate under the form of an accident.

It is however this Promothean dream of telling God « look, I have emancipated from You, and I decide totally from the moment of my death! » that brings people to accept ideas such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research.

The drama of what might be considered as the elucubrations of « mad scientists » is that they fail to see how they think to emancipate from a transcending power to fall into the hands of a very temporal power. Giving birth outside of a woman’s womb may also mean a closer control and monitoring by other actors of your child, and your access to fertility - as in « A Brave new world». There is also another more harmful meaning behind this technique: access to such dispendious techniques will mean in the future that « painless » reproduction for the woman will be reserved to the elites, and not to the rank-and-file citizen. It is already the basis for a society of discrimination and social domination.

There is another point, but it concerns the child: what sort of child will be a child born in such circumstances? We have on the one hand the positive evidence of children conceived in vitro, and who seem to be quite natural and well-adapted in society. But they grew within a woman’s womb, a womb which loved them. What about children in a totally disincarnate environment? Atlan seemed to try to reply to the objection when he said that the stimuli of the womb could try to be reproduced by the parents... But we do not know enough of the psyche of the children to reply to that.

It is always worth going beyond the arguments of proponents of « scientific advances » to discover their hidden motivations. In the case of Atlan, he was rather honest in exposing his personal motivations for pushing forward this idea. But maybe that his ideas are pushing forward a greater curse for humanity than the one he reads in the Genesis...

Acting on ethical subjects before they enter a legislative debate

A number of analyses were opposing themselves before the conclave in the heart of the Catholic Church as to the direction which ought to be taken by the institution in front of the growing secularization of the world - especially in Europe. John Allen, of NCR in a recent article, quoted three principal directions which could influence the college of cardinals, which we could describe as the « democratic » school, the « proclamation » school, and the « disengagement » school.
The analysis differs only on the strategy which ought to be adopted in reply to public disaffection for the Church and its message. The public success of some bestsellers such as the Da Vinci Code tend to portray the Church as an opaque and anti-democratic institution. In face of this poor public imago, some reform ought to take place, as much in order to change the image of the institution, as to give the image of a Church closer to the preoccupations of the faithful.

Belgium published in 2002 an Act relating to euthanasia, which allows physicians to kill patients in terminal phase at their demand without being prosecuted, as I related in one of my previous posts of the month of February. In the latest study on the incidence of the Act, the Belgian Federal Commission for the Evaluation of euthanasia established that only 1/3 of all euthanasias committed in the country are reported. This proportion is similar to that in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been also legalized. The Commission found nevertheless that the risk of applying « mercy kiling » mostly to the oldest patients was not present. It might be noticed, however, that the 2/3 unreported euthanasias may well cover vulnerable populations. The other fears that were evoked at the time was that legalizing euthanasia for terminal phase patients would entail the risk of what is called the « slippery slope », an ever-increasing widening of the scope of euthanasia. As if to confirm these fears, in July 2004, a bill was introduced to open the field of euthanasia to patients suffering of dementia and to children (minors). Read my previous post to find a link to that bill.

All the Belgian political parties (in that including the two Walloon and Flemish Social-Christian parties) were favourable to the authorization of euthanasia, differring only on the extent of that authorization. The attitude of the Catholic Church in Belgium has been somewhat subdued during the debates on euthanasia. Many church-going faithful, were favourable to a limited authorisation of euthanasia, in the framework of the « state of necessity », a Belgian legal concept which entails the possibility of doing an evil to obtain a greater good.

However, the bishop of Namur, a city in the French-speaking part of Belgium, and an opponent to euthanasia Mgr. André-Mutien Léonard publicly regretted in a conference at the Vatican, in the month of February, that a true debate on euthanasia did not take place in the heart of the Church of Belgium, and that it did not take place either in the Belgian society.

It appears, retrospectively that the silence of the Church of Belgium on the question of euthanasia during the debates in Parliament favoured an unilateral view of the question. According to Belgian sources, this silence of the Cardinal of Brussels Godfried Danneels caused him to lose almost all his chances in being a pappabile in the recent conclave. And that gave the impression that euthanasia was in the order of things in a « modern » society. Cardinal Danneels, when accused of inaction, often claimed that he « did not have the political troops » to act on ethical subjects. Despite this fact, Catholic physicians who had informed Cardinal Danneels claimed that they were not supported by the Church.

The Belgian evolution illustrates the dangers of leaving the debate on ethical subjects such as therapeutical cloning and euthanasia in the hands of the civil society, alone. When the Church disengages from the ethical debates of the only arguments in the field remain those which are often promoted by pop culture (as for instance in One million dollar baby of Eastwood, or Mar adentro two films which feature a positive image of euthanasia).

The appeal of pop culture, and mass media takes over when there is no counterbalancing discourse. The fear of being accused of proselytism and of obscurantism has long time been a limiting factor in continental Europe for avoiding to take part to political debates.

There is however a place for the Church’s intervention in ethical debates. As former Cardinal Ratzinger, recalled in a speech in November 1992 (available in French only), the separation of State and the Church originates in Christian principles. It might be added that in those ancient times of theocracy, it was Pope Innocent III, in the XIIIth century, who edicted that foundation of democracy: Quod omnibus tangit ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet (what touches everybody should be discussed and approved by everyone). But besides this historical commitment of the Church to Common Good, there are other reasons for the Church to make its voice heard. In a secularized society it is easy to loose track of the more fundamental values and of the need of keeping in mind the Common Good.

The Church, in the specific context of the XXIst century Europe, where diffidence towards organized politics reigns, is one of the few institutions which has a capacity of proposing an alternative view of society and politics. Where politicians have been discredited with corruption and thirst of power, new men, living a simple and modest life have a new and enlightening task in teaching rules in a new language.

When the elementary moral rules have dissappeared from public life, then it becomes an urgent need for a new word unstained by compromission to be heard. It is this message that Pope Benedict XVI sought to communicate in his homely on Saturday 7 May 2005, and which you may read (Italian text) here: http://www.vatican.va/gpII/bulletin/B0263-XX.01.pdf

That is the principal reason for which "reform" cannot be heard within the magisterium as far as question of faith or morals are concerned.