Urgencia de la bioética ante la biotecnología: ¿Cómo identificar un ser humano unicelular?

María Alejandra Carrasco*, Patricio Ventura-Juncá

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

In recent decades, bioethics has become a crucial issue for the church. The dynamics of such study, which is self-propelled and advances independently of ethical criteria, is imminently threatening to human dignity. It is now possible to artificially produce human beings, even without the involvement of gametes. What still hasn't been established is an index that recognizes when a manipulated cell is still a cell -eventually pluripotent and therefore possessing great therapeutic promise- or when it has become a totipotent cell, a zygote, a human organism, namely a person. Science, philosophy and technology, as is shown in this paper, come together to reflect on bioethics in the urgent need to find these signs, given that biotechnology is still advancing and a position must be taken on its discoveries. The Church cannot remain silent as it beholds possible artificial production, instrumentalization and destruction of people who, despite being in the single-cell phase and having come to the world as artifacts, are still reflections of the face of God.

Original languageSpanish
Pages (from-to)179-231
Number of pages53
JournalTeologia y Vida
Volume51
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010
Externally publishedYes

Cite this