“You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made” (Ps 139: 13-14).
The gospel’s announcement of glad tidings “A child has been born for us” still rings on the occasion of every birth, according to Hannah Arendt. The image of the newborn gave rise to her concept of natality. It means that with every birth begins not only a story of another life but also a story of a new life, the promise of new initiatives and new beginnings. Each person is in himself a new beginning. Does this fundamental character of natality not obscure by reproductive technology, especially with genetic programming?
Of course, medically assisted procreation helps solve many problems related to birth. Thanks to the efficiency and the operational techniques implemented, our contemporary world solves issues like infertility or sterility. Even the impact of menopause is offset sometimes. It is also possible to satisfy the desires of unconventional parenthood and prevent the transference of serious illness to the child. However, these feats also pose serious ethical challenges. In solving the problem of infertility, assisted reproduction provides access to basic cells of human life. Medical and institutional responsibility is highly involved in the genesis of a human being. This genesis requires ethical vigilance in our time when a child is sometimes considered as a “human creation” whom right to life depends on the parents, especially while he/she is still in the womb.
It is not given to the parents to “create” a child in their own image. A child is a gift from God. As a gift, a child is given to the parents and to humankind from conception to natural death. There is no need of discussing about the time the fetus becomes sufficiently human to have the right to life. As a baby on the way, the fetus is a human-living-being from conception. He is not fully developed yet, but he is fully human and therefore has a right to life from this time. “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life” (Donum Vitae I,1). The right to life requires the parents and society – political leaders – the duty and responsibility of welcoming the newborn into the world.
Each human being born and unborn, in his/her uniqueness, deserves the respect and love that would be shown to anyone who bears the mark of the Creator, source of our dignity. Therefore, no one has the right to decide who can be born or not.The respect of human dignity requires more responsibility for those who are at the fragile stage of conception and who cannot defend themselves like a child in the mother’s womb. We are all called to protect the sacredness of life and its inalienable ontological dignity in all stages of human life. Such dignity is a requirement that “something is due to a human being simply because he is human”. The fact that we are human from our mother's womb is an inalienable value.
That is why I consider the sin of murdering babies in the mother's womb as a “modern slavery”. As the slavery denied the dignity of the slaves, the murder of babies in the mother's womb denies the ontological dignity of babies who are considered less than human beings. Not that long ago, slavery was considered as a value. It is not the case today. I have a conviction that one day – through the power of the Holy Spirit who is God and giver of life – the conscience of humanity in general and the conscience of the people of the United States in particular will “grow up”. And all of us will stand together against the sin of murdering babies in the mother's womb as we are today against slavery. The fact that slavery was considered as a value did not make it a value in itself. It is the same for the murder of babies in the mother's womb. In the recent past, nobody could imagine tearing down statues of pro-slavery people around the world. History will judge societies, political leaders, and their institutions by how effectively they protected life and human dignity from conception, through each stage of development, until natural death.