What shall we make of man?” “” “

Being born, being treated, being cured, dying: aspects of human life now at the centre of far-reaching changes. The biological and medical sciences have made spectacular progress in recent times. They have now reached the point of prospecting – and this is just the most recent innovation coming from the USA – the cloning of human beings. New and complex questions are posed by these developments. They revolutionize our relation with life and death, with health and disease. These issues were the focus of discussion at the 76th French Social Week which was held from 23 to 26 November and brought together experts and pastoral workers on the theme “Biology, medicine and society. What shall we make of Man?”. “Our objective – explain the promoters of the meeting – is to help a public of non specialists to understand what is at stake, to regard the often ambivalent progress of science in a clear-sighted way, and to free themselves of myths, so to be able to make a clearer contribution to the great questions that concern each one of us, society as a whole, and the human environment in which we live”. “May science never reduce man to an object” – “May science never reduce man to an object, but be always and fully at his service”. That is the message that John Paul II sent to the participants at the French Social Week. “The Church – writes the Pope – appreciates and encourages research in the field of bio-medicine, when it is aimed at the prevention and cure of diseases, at the relief of suffering and the well-being of man”. But faced by the “astonishing” progress of the biomedical sciences, one may sometimes “be bedazzled by its power and be tempted to manipulate man as if he were an object or a piece of material”. The dignity of man is threatened especially in the most critical phases of his existence: at the moment of conception and at the moment of natural death. A new temptation is spreading today and it is that – John Paul II continues in his message – of “arrogating to oneself the right to fix, to determine the thresholds of humanity”. This demands “absolute respect for the human being, from his embryonal phase to the end of his existence” and also respect for the “human germinal cells by virtue of the human heredity of which they are the bearers”. The Holy Father’s message also contains an appeal to the political world to establish “juridical rules to protect persons from any arbitrary eventuality”. “Will we be able to impose limits?”. “The progress of genetics – declared Axel Kahn, director of the department of genetics at the CHU Cochin Port-Royal – has been spectacular in the course of the last thirty years. Very important progress has been made in resolving numerous cases of infertility: medical assistance to procreation is one of the greatest technical wonders of the twentieth century. Now the question is: will we resist the temptation to fabricate perfect babies?”. Only twenty years have elapsed between the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, and the prospect of cloning. “The research – pointed out the psychoanalyst Monette Vacquin – , stimulated by the dynamic of the market and the expectations of society, has led to a proliferation of experiments and the setting of new goals”. “Is it really necessary – asks Vacquin – that, in the hope of achieving new breakthroughs in the treatment of human diseases, human life needs to be reproduced (cloning), its existence interrupted (abortion), and its tissue exploited (genetic therapy) or manipulated (research on the embryo)?”. Life in the womb: a mystery to be respected. “For many of us here – said Michel Camdessus, president of the Social Weeks – what is at stake is a fundamental decision for the future of our societies, because the very respect for the human person, and what it is that is most vulnerable in him, is at risk. For others, by contrast, the embryo is not an enigma, a ‘potential person’, ‘the uncertain beginning of a human life’. Whatever the case, it is a mystery that touches man too closely to be violated”. Maria Chiara Biagioni