Reflections on Persons in Petri Dishes

Cf. Wilmut I. , Schnieke A.E. , McWhir J. , Kind A.J. , and Campbell K.H.S. , “Viable Offspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells,” Nature, vol 385, n. 6619 (February 27, 1997), pp. 810–813; and Colin L. Stewart, “An Udder Way of Making Lambs,” Nature, pp. 769–771. In the aftermath of Dolly, the words of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (“Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation” [hereafter: “Instruction …”], Origins, XVI, n. 40 (March 19, 1987), p. 710) are most relevant: “The spread of technologies of intervention in the processes of human procreation raises very serious moral problems in relation to the respect due to the human being from the moment of conception, to the dignity of the person, of his or her sexuality and of the transmission of life.”

Cf. “From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already.” “Instruction…,” p. 701.

In line with this, at one of the great progress points in the moral consciousness of the human race, Francisco de Vitoria, O.P. [d. 1546] – arguably the founder of International Law – attested to the humanity of the American Indians, and their rights vis a vis the Spaniards, by pointing to such achievements; cf. “Reflection on the American Indians (De Indis),” I, 6, in Francisco de Vitoria: Political Writings, ed. by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 250.

See Plato , Apology, 38A, in The Dialogues of Plato, tr. B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), I, 420.

On the natural character of religion among human beings, cf. Vitoria, “Reflection I: On the Power of the Church” (De Potestate Ecclesiae prior), q. 4, a. 2, in Pagden and Lawrance, p. 75.

Cf. Protrepticus, fr. 50, 1483b 29, 42; 1484a 2, 8, 18.

Cf. Kant I. , Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. L.W. Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), p. 47.

Cf. Kant I. , Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. L.W. Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), p. 47.

Metaphysics V, 1015a 13–15.

Cf., e.g., Thomas Aquinas St. , Summa contra Gentiles, II, c. 79; III, cc. 42, 69, and 85. Cf. Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, in Patrologia Latina, 64, cols. 1343–5.

“All learning is remembering.” Meno, 81 D, tr. Jowett B. , I, p. 360.

Cf. his famous “I think, therefore I am.” Discours de la Méthode, IV^ième Part., ed. étienne Gilson (Paris: Librarie J. Vrin, 1947), p. 32; and Meditationes de prima philosophia II, ed. Rodis-Lewis G. (Paris: Vrin, 1966), p. 25.

On this, cf. “… the mind's knowledge has its origin in sensation, not because some sense apprehends everything which the mind knows, but because from what the senses know the mind is led to things beyond, in a way that sensible things even lead the mind to understanding the things of God.” St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 10, a. 6, ad 2.

“It is pointless to do with more what can be done with less.” (Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.); for a recent article on the character of razor and its use by Ockham, cf. Armand Maurer, “Ockham's Razor and Dialectical Reasoning,” Medieval Studies, 58 (1996), pp. 49–65.

Cf. “In his unique and irrepeatable origin, the child must be respected and recognized as equal in personal dignity to those who give him life.” “Instruction …,” p. 706; and: “… the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children.” Medieval Studies, 58 (1996), p. 707.

Which is to say that we do not owe duties to them, but not to say that we have no duties that regard them.

On this, cf., e.g., St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 96, aa. 1–2 and In Sent. II, d. 44, q. 1, a. 3.

“Instruction …,” p. 699.

“Instruction …,”, p. 700.

Cf., e.g.: “The child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage.” “Instruction …,” p. 704.

Cf. Specter Michael with Gina Kolata, “After Decades and Many Missteps, Cloning Success, The New York Times (March 3, 1997), p. A9.

Cf. “… marriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child, but only the right to perform those natural acts which are per se ordered to procreation. A true and proper right to a child would be contrary to the child's dignity and nature. The child is not an object to which one has a right nor can he be considered as an object of ownership.” “Instruction …,” p. 708.

For some of this, cf. Wollheim Richard , “Natural Law,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967), V, p. 451; and John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 374–8.

Cf. “The church's teaching on marriage and human procreation affirms the ‘inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.’…. Contraception deliberately deprives me conjugal act of its openness to procreation and in this way brings about a voluntary dissociation of me ends of marriage. Homologous artificial fertilization, in seeking a procreation which is not the fruit of a specific act of conjugal union, objectively effects an analogous separation between the goods and meaning of marriage.” “Instruction …,” pp. 705–706.

Cf. Juvenal , Satires, VI, 1. 223.