The desire for motherhood has found in extracorporeal fertilisation both an alley and a means capable of transforming and distorting the act of generation itself, thus weighing heavily on children’s life and personality.
A recent news item relates to the birth of a child generated through the fertilisation of an oocyte (taken from a so-called woman donor) by means of the male gametes of the brother of the expectant mother, a homosexual woman aged fifty-one: the announcement was made by Edwards, that is by the person who first applied reproductive biotechnology to a human being. This “borderline” practice has been compared to an incest, although in fact not only had there been no sexual intercourse, but the sister is only reported to be the “expectant” mother, and not the biological mother of her brother’s son. To be quite honest, we even lack the necessary vocabulary to describe an event in which all the specific relations involved in human procreation have been disrupted.
The newly born baby, who is the result of a shattered generation process and of the power of technology, will have to face an unusual situation and will have quite a number of difficulties in putting together his own identity. From a sociological point of view, this child is the son of the brother of his expectant mother, whereas his biological mother (the woman who donated the oocyte) is a stranger, an unknown person.
Furthermore, according to the news, he will be brought up by a homosexual couple, the father figure will be missing and the mother figure will remain undetermined, so to speak. We are facing a fact: the separation of procreation from a man and woman’s interpersonal relations exposes the existence of the new generations in an absolutely new way. We increasingly realise how easy it is to direct in a merely arbitrary manner another person’s life. And, sure enough, it is not sufficient to recall that there have always been abuses in the history of man, which is so full of violence. But in this case, we actually seem to be lacking the awareness that we are facing an abuse of technological power, and that this involves a form of violence, perpetrated with the direct responsibility of medicine. If our personal conscience is no longer capable of evaluating our actions on somebody else’s existence, then the law should be asked to put a curb on this use of freedom by adults, which is injurious to the rights of the weak. This inurement to practices that ignore the intrinsic rights of unborn children arises from a progressive weakening of the specific intrinsic value of human existence.
Other worrying signs of this new season may be easily detected in the request to employ not implanted human embryos for experimental purposes or as sources of staminal cells. Indeed, it has been the practical bet relating to the therapeutic use of staminal cells taken from human embryos that has recently led some researches to request authorisation to proceed with human cloning, nor longer for reproductive purposes, but only to obtain staminal cells. Extracorporeal fertilisation is therefore proceeding towards its full and explicit cultural function: virtually transforming man, in the initial stages of his existence, into a mere biological product, available at the discretion of the most disparate desires of other men: adult men. The human embryos (that is our children in embryo) are therefore bound to be acknowledged for their value and importance only depending on the projects and desires of those who commission their generation.
We have a reversal of perspective. It no longer is the objective condition of “children” in embryo that dictates the code of practice to be followed, but it is the project conceived by certain adults that sets forth, each time, what may legitimately be done and what may not. In other words: it is what we think of human embryos that decides what they are or who they are. It is the same as saying that a man becomes such only if and when he is acknowledged by other men, and, more specifically, by those who have the power to decide about his development and life. In actual fact, this procedure is similar, although more sophisticated, to the one that for many centuries subordinated the acknowledgement of the dignity and human value of slaves to whether free men decided to grant it or not. Also in the case of slavery, man could be treated as an object, as a means for production, as a mere tool, or he could be “freed” by the will of him who had the right to decide about his human condition. In the same way today, the biological condition of an embryo may be viewed as a means to obtain staminal cells, to continue one’s “ancestry” or to satisfy one’s desire for motherhood. This analogy seems to be clouded by the debate, which is still open, on the embryonic condition itself: should the human embryo benefit from the safeguard that western cultural development has increasingly granted to each human being as such, irrespective of his extrinsic conditions, that is health, education, development, genre, richness or poorness? In other words, should the human embryo be granted the same respect that is due to human beings?
May the right to the safeguard of existence, which is the right underlying the emergence of all human features, be restricted with respect to our children in embryo? The overlapping of a scientific language and a philosophical language, of cognitive and valuational issues, seems to further complicate the understanding of the fact that reproductive technology practices are putting at stake the acknowledgement of man’s universal rights: we are slowly but surely proceeding towards new forms of discrimination. In order to ground this statement, we need to analyse the anthropological meaning of the expression “human embryo” and rediscover the reasons whereby a child in embryo is acknowledged the specific features of a human being. And once we have rediscovered these reasons, we need to draw ethical and legal conclusions, so as to place a restraint on the indefinite possibilities that technology delivers to the power of individual men. Only in this way will it be possible to acknowledge the non-arbitrariness of the request to govern biotechnological development according to criteria which overcome the logic of desire: this logic only seems to consider the obstacles, that is the issues that need to be overcome, whilst not taking into account the restraints, that is the issues that one deliberately chooses not to overcome, even when possible, for the good of humanity and in order to respect the principle of equality. This does not involve resuming the concept of the sacredness of human life, which today appears to be confined to religious faith (in turn inadequately and misleadingly represented as a mere option), but it involves carefully reflecting about what the acknowledgment of the human condition means and involves.
Our respect for the dignity of man is demonstrated in two different ways: by respecting the specific features of human procreation and by respecting the human condition of the unborn child. Indeed, no form of political or cultural tolerance may be justified if this essential ethical prospect fails to be acknowledged. And we can only prevent tolerance and protection of our liberty to choose from changing into indifference and complicity in private violence when these aspects are rooted in the acknowledgment of human dignity.
(to be continued)

Adriano Pessina

Docente di Bioetica
Università Cattolicxa - Milano