Dignitas Personae Explained

25 Jan 2011

By The Record

Dignitas Personae Explained: The Church’s teaching on reproductive and related technologies. By Dr John I Fleming, Foreword by Dr John Haas. Reviewed by A/Prof Nicholas Tonti-Filippini
Associate Dean, John Paul Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne

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Infertility and the suffering associated with it has always been a tragic part of the human experience. 
This is especially true today.  Various medical remedies have been developed to deal with human infertility, with artificial reproductive technologies being widely used. 
The Catholic Church considers that every child should be conceived as a result of the expression of love of his or her parents.  
Medical technology may assist but should never replace their expression of love in the generation of the new life.   
It is important that the child not come to be in the laboratory as an object or product subject to quality control and dominated  by the technologists.
This book provides an account in layman’s terms of why the Church teaches that IVF is not acceptable. 
It is an important book for couples seeking to overcome infertility and for those who assist them.  
I am delighted to have the opportunity to launch it at the 2011 Annual Bioethics Colloquium conducted by the Australian Association of Catholic Bioethicists on the topic of Human Eugenics. 
The topic was requested by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. 
IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos is an important element of contemporary eugenics.
In the foreword to the book, US Bioethicist Dr John Haas writes: “Dr John Fleming reflects on, and amplifies, this new teaching document of the Church to make it all the more accessible to those who ought to benefit from it: not only those in the pew but also those in the laboratory who are not even religious.”
I have known Dr John Fleming for 30 years, since he was an Anglican priest and through his conversion to Catholicism, and I attended his ordination in the Catholic Church as a married priest with children. John has much to offer on this difficult topic. 
Years of being a journalist have given him a wonderful ability to explain complex matters simply despite being an internationally renowned expert in bioethics. 
John is Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at Southern Cross Bioethics Institute (Adelaide, South Australia), and a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (Vatican).
Dr Fleming was a foundation member of UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee which worked on producing international law in relation to human rights and the human genome.