Pope Encourages Scientists in Efforts to Solve Infertility

But Says Vocation to Marriage Isn't Frustrated When Conception Is Impossible

By Kathleen Naab
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 27, 2012.- The scientifically best approach to infertility, and also the one most respectful of the persons involved, is a pursuit of diagnosis and therapy, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope affirmed this Saturday when he received some 200 members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, convened for their 18th general assembly, which was on the topic of infertility.

"The pursuit of a diagnosis and of a therapy represents the most scientifically correct approach to the question of infertility, but also that which is most respectful of the integral humanity of the subjects involved," the Holy Father said. "In fact, the union of the man and woman in that community of life that is matrimony constitutes the only dignified 'place' in which a new human being, which is always a gift, may be called into existence."

The Pontiff said he encourages "intellectual honesty," which is "the expression of a science that keeps the spirit of the pursuit of truth alive, in the service of man's authentic good, and that avoids the danger of being a merely functional practice. The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, does not consist in a 'product,' but in its connection with the conjugal act, the expression of the love of the husband and wife, of their union that is not only biological but also spiritual."

Vocation to love

Benedict XVI acknowledged that science cannot find a remedy for every cause of infertility.

He affirmed the Church's attention to infertile couples and its support of medical research.

"The science, nevertheless, is not always able to respond to the desires of many couples," he said. "I would like again to remind the spouses who experience infertility that their vocation to marriage is not frustrated because of this. The husband and wife, because of their baptismal and matrimonial vocations themselves, are always called to work together with God in creating a new humanity. The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to the gift of self and this is a possibility that cannot be impeded by any organic condition. Therefore, where science cannot find an answer, the answer that brings light comes from Christ."

Whose design will be used for designer brains?

Dr Paul Root Wolpe is the senior bioethicist at NASA and a pioneer in the field of neuroethics. Peering into his children's and grandchildren's future, he sees an America that rewards competitiveness and productivity over relationship-building, and suspects that future generations will face intense pressure to enhance their minds and bodies in unhealthy ways. If parents already use Ritalin to give kids a competitive edge, what will happen when we can genetically engineer their talents? 

by Michael Cook | Feb 20, 2012

Assisted-suicide booms in Switzerland

by Jared Yee | Feb 25, 2012 

The number of patients in Switzerland who killed themselves with the help of assisted-suicide organisations rose significantly in 2011, new figures show. Exit, which caters exclusively to Swiss residents, announced on Monday that it had helped 416 patients to kill themselves last year. Of those deaths, 305 occurred in the country's German-speaking region, up from 257 in 2010, and 111 occurred in the French-speaking areas, up from 91 in the previous year. The organisation also saw a boom in new memberships. It now has 75,000. In 2011, Dignitas, Switzerland's other major assisted-suicide organisation, helped 144 people kill themselves - a 35% increase as reported by the Sonntag Zeitung.

Dr Jérôme Sobel, president of Exit for the French-speaking cantons, said the increase in assisted suicides directly correlates with the increase in memberships.

"There are people who call us to get reassurance and who will fix a date [to end their lives] if their situation further deteriorates. So there are people for whom calling us acts as a reassurance, and there are people whom we have been to see but who then in fact died a natural death."

Only Dignitas helps foreigners. Reports of "suicide tourism" have sparked fiery debate both domestically and internationally, increasing pressure on the Swiss government to tighten assisted-suicide laws. Last June it ruled out introducing new legislation to regulate the practice, but the government has since proposed a set of measures to bolster suicide prevention and improve palliative care options. The Swiss Federal Court has ruled that a person has a right to end his or her life provided he or she is of sound mind. ~ swissinfo.ch, Feb 20

Ethicists give thumbs-up to infanticide

by Michael Cook | Feb 25, 2012

If abortion, why not infanticide? This leading question is often treated as a canard by supporters of abortion. However, it is seriously argued by two Italian utilitarians and published online in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics this week.

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva are associated respectively with Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia, and with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, in the UK.

They argue that both the fetus and the new-born infant are only potential persons without any interests. Therefore the interests of the persons involved with them are paramount until some indefinite time after birth. To emphasise the continuity between the two acts, they term it "after-birth abortion" rather than infanticide.

Their conclusions may shock but Guibilini and Minerva assert them very confidently. "We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk." This assertion highlights another aspect of their argument. Killing an infant after birth is not euthanasia either. In euthanasia, a doctor would be seeking the best interests of the person who dies. But in "after-birth abortion" it is the interests of people involved, not the baby.

To critical eyes, their argument will no doubt look like a slippery slope, as they are simply seeking to extend the logic of abortion to infanticide:

"If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn."

How long after birth is it "ethically permissible" to kill infants? Guibilini and Minerva leave that question up to neurologists and psychologists, but it takes at least a few weeks for the infant to become self-conscious. At that stage it moves from being a potential person to being a person, and infanticide would no longer be allowed. ~ Journal of Medical Ethics, Feb 23

Free will

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophical idea of free will.
Free will - the extent to which we are free to choose our own actions - is one of the most absorbing philosophical problems, debated by almost every great thinker of the last two thousand years. In a universe apparently governed by physical laws, is it possible for individuals to be responsible for their own actions? Or are our lives simply proceeding along preordained paths? Determinism - the doctrine that every event is the inevitable consequence of what goes before - seems to suggest so.
Many intellectuals have concluded that free will is logically impossible. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza regarded it as a delusion. Albert Einstein wrote: "Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion." But in the Enlightenment, philosophers including David Hume found ways in which free will and determinism could be reconciled. Recent scientific developments mean that this debate remains as lively today as it was in the ancient world.
With:
Simon Blackburn Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
Helen Beebee Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Galen Strawson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading

Listen in:

Philosophical Investigations

After the input from Peter Baron at today's conference, here is the link to his excellent website:

http://philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/