A lexicon to clarify the language of life and bioethics, with the title “Lexicon of ambiguous and controversial terms on the family, life and ethical questions” has been published by Téqui (2005). It contains the contributions of 72 experts of various nationalities. In his introduction, Jean-Pierre Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux and president of the Bishops’ Conference of France, explains that the project, of which the book is a result, “dates back to 1994, the year of the Cairo international conference on population and development held by the UN Fund for Population”. During this conference “some participants realised that a curious, almost coded language was used in the preparatory documents and in the interventions, a language in which apparently anodyne, but in actual fact ambiguous or ambivalent terms were frequent”. What Ricard calls a “manipulation of language” “could have induced some delegates to vote in favour of motions contrary to their own convictions”. This led to the request of some delegates to the Pontifical Council for the Family, which had its own representative at the Conference, to publish a kind of “lexicon” to more clearly define the terms now in common use. The volume (1108 pages, with a preface by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the aforesaid Vatican office) “offers in the first place a general view of bioethics”, continues Archbishop Ricard. In response to the “utilitarian colouring, devoid of moral norms, of Anglo-Saxon bioethics, the Church underlines the need for serious anthropological and philosophical foundations”. A second part of the book is dedicated to the family in the current context and in its relations to nature and the person. The third and final part is dedicated to human life and to the threats that assail it, especially in its initial and conclusive phases”. Particular scope is reserved for the dignity and rights of human embryo. The book, concludes Ricard, is “a useful tool for all those who deal with bioethics and those involved in the pastoral ministry of the family and healthcare”. The various authors include the geneticist Angelo Serra, the psychologist Tony Anatrella and the philosopher Xavier Lacroix.
