Bioethics and the Dignity of the Human Body
"Creation of Adam," (Detail) Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, 1504-1512
Catholic Bioethics has a special focus on the dignity of the human body. This flows naturally from the great appreciation we should always have for the marvelous qualities of our flesh and blood. The human person is a composite being of body, soul, and spirit as St. Paul affirms in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Christianity was a giant leap forward in its respect and even awe for the human body.
A foundational doctrine for Christians is that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) We believe that God became man, took on our human nature in all things except sin, was incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and shared our human condition through his cross and death. The Incarnation of God raises the dignity of the human body to a spiritual level. Already in the Old Testament, the creation accounts marked human beings as separate from the animals and willed specially by God as creatures made in His image and likeness. (Genesis 1:26) St. Paul affirms that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit just after condemning sexual immorality and pointing out that these sins are specially serious because they are sins against our own bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:18–20)
Bioethics has a great deal to say about avoiding wrongs against the body. Let us start at the beginning with conception. In vitro fertilization manipulates the origin of human beings in our first incarnate moment and separates it from the loving conjugal embrace of our parents. The very simple and profound Catholic guidance concerning methods of overcoming infertility is that licit means assist the marital act while illicit ones replace it. The Vatican Instruction Donum Vitae states, “If the technical means facilitates the conjugal act or helps it to reach its natural objectives, it can be morally acceptable. If, on the other hand, the procedure were to replace the conjugal act, it is morally illicit.” The dignity of the human person and the proper treatment of our bodies means that we cannot be conceived and manipulated in a petri dish by lab technicians.
The human body deserves respect from conception to the grave and beyond. The reason for concern today over vaccines with connections to abortion-derived cell lines is that these lines had their origins in very grave transgressions of the moral law. They began with abortion and the raiding of fetal cadavers for their tissues. This evil occurred quite some time ago, but Planned Parenthood Federation of America was exposed in recent years for profiting from the ghoulish practice of procuring and delivering the body parts of aborted children for a fee to scientific researchers. The incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, as California’s Attorney General, saw fit to investigate those who exposed these sales rather than the abortion business itself. Incoming Health and Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra, prosecuted the cases she initiated against Daniel Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.
The Church, in its Instruction Ad resurgendum cum Christo, very eloquently urges that the bodies of the faithfully departed receive a reverent burial and not be treated disrespectfully after death. The practice of cremation is quite discouraged by the Catholic Church and only reluctantly permitted if there are sanitary, economic, or social reasons to do so. Cremation is sinful if it is a gesture of denial of Christian doctrine, for example, belief in the resurrection of the body.
Many modern crime investigation programs on television have a disturbing tendency to show simulated cadavers cut apart by medical examiners. The images can be gruesome but even worse are the casual conversations and jokes made while standing over the dead. An autopsy to determine how a person died is ethical, but the utmost respect for the human remains of persons must be observed. I remember the visceral reaction I had the first time I heard in a war film the cadavers of dead soldiers called “dead meat.” Degrading language or treatment of the dead are serious ethical violations.
Mutilations are also grave offenses. The amputation of a limb or other body part can be ethically justified if it cannot be healed and places the patient’s life at risk. Cosmetic surgery, not to correct a disfigurement but to enhance or distort our bodies, is highly problematic. The most extreme violations of this norm today are the extensive drug and surgical interventions that some undergo as part of a futile attempt to change their sex. The Church can never agree with the Transgender ideological view of the human body and soul. To claim that one’s body is the wrong sex is a rejection of God the Creator.
I am constantly impressed when science discovers new ways that “we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14) Our gratefulness that God created us in His image and likeness, and that Christ was incarnate, should enhance reverence for our own human flesh. A sound bioethics must always keep the unique aspects of our bodily dimension in mind when considering what medical and scientific interventions are ethical.
