What Respect Is Due to the Human Embryo, Taking into Account His Nature and Identity?
The human being must be respected—as a person—from the very first instant of his existence. The implementation of procedures of artificial fertilization has made possible various interventions upon embryos and human fetuses. The aims pursued are of various kinds: diagnostic and therapeutic, scientific and commercial. From all of this, serious problems arise. Can one speak of a right to experimentation upon human embryos for the purpose of scientific research? What norms or laws should be worked out with regard to this matter? The response to these problems presupposes a detailed reflection on the nature and specific identity—the word “status” is used—of the human embryo itself. At the Second Vatican Council, the Church for her part presented once again to modern man her constant and certain doctrine according to which: “Life, once conceived, must be protected with the utmost care; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”23 More recently, the Charter of the Rights of the Family,
