Abstract
In the United States in particular, one institution that consistently resisted the social momentum to implement eugenic public policies was the Catholic Church. From the Catholic perspective, everyone is worthy, and the focus should be on figuring out how best to care for each individual human being, with access to scarce resources given first to those who need them the most. This chapter addresses the ethical challenge of eugenics and genetic technologies, including preconception and pre-natal genetic testing and genome editing, from the perspective of the medical moral tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. This perspective can contribute to a broad and rich description of human nature and experience, including many types of knowledge and experience, because genetic interventions can and will affect human beings on all levels of their existence.
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Notes
- 1.
Sections of this chapter were originally published as “A Catholic Perspective on Human Genome Editing,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1, Spring 2017.
- 2.
For an outline of the history of Catholic thought on the status of the human embryo, and the impact of the discovery of human ova, see http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/abortion/respect-for-unborn-human-life.cfm (accessed 1/26/19).
- 3.
Both summaries can be found at https://www.genome.gov/27570856/genomic-medicine-for-reproductive-prenatal-and-neonatal-health/ (accessed 1/26/19).
- 4.
https://www.genome.gov/27570937/april-17-noninvasive-prenatal-genetic-testing/ (accessed 1/26/19).
- 5.
https://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/ (accessed 1/26/19).
- 6.
https://www.genome.gov/27569222/genome-editing/ (accessed 1/26/19).
- 7.
“A prudent path forward for genomic engineering and germline gene modification,” by David Baltimore, et al., SCIENCE, 3 April 2015, Vol. 348, Issue 6230, pp. 36–8.
- 8.
http://www.nationalacademies.org/gene-editing/2nd_summit/index.htm (accessed 1/26/19).
- 9.
Sharon M. Leon, An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2013), 169.
- 10.
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes (December 7, 1965), nn. 1–3.
- 11.
Ibid., nn. 23, 28–29.
- 12.
John Paul II, Dolentium hominum (February 11, 1985), nn. 1–2.
- 13.
For examples both in preventive and critical care medicine, see “Improved Outcomes Start with Patient Engagement,” HealthTrust, October 14, 2015, http://healthtrustpg.com/; and Judy E. Davidson et al., “Clinical Practice Guidelines for support of the Family in the Patient-Centered Intensive Care Unit: American College of Critical Care Medicine Task Force 2004–2005,” Critical Care Medicine 35.2 (February 2007): 605–622, https://doi.org/10.1097/01.
- 14.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas personae, On Certain Bioethics Questions (September 8, 2008), nn. 26–27, original emphasis.
- 15.
Kevin T. FitzGerald, “The Need for a Dynamic and Integrative Vision of the Human for the Ethics of Genetics,” in Genetics, Theology, and Ethics, ed. Lisa Sowle Cahill (New York: The Crossroad, 2005).
- 16.
Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate (June 29, 2009), n. 31, original emphasis.
- 17.
Francis, Evangelii gaudium (November 24, 2013), n. 242.
- 18.
FitzGerald, “The Need for a Dynamic and Integrative Vision,” in Cahill, Genetics, Theology and Ethics.
- 19.
Anna Higgins, “Sex-Selection Abortion: the Real War on Women,” American Reports Series, Charlotte Lozier Institute, April 13, 2016, https://lozierinstitute.org/sex-selection-abortion-the-real-war-on-women/ (accessed 1/26/19).
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Francis, Evangelii gaudium, n. 198.
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Fitzgerald, K. (2022). The Good and the Goal of Pre-conception and Pre-natal Genetic Testing from a Catholic Perspective. In: Allyse, M.A., Michie, M. (eds) Born Well: Prenatal Genetics and the Future of Having Children. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 88. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82536-2_7
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