Saturday, June 11, 2005
The referendum on assisted fertility
After a while without blogging (due
to countless things), I am posting these notes on the public referendum
that will take place in Italy on 12-13/6/2005. Just in case any
non-Italian read this page, this is a referendum where people are asked
whether to scrap or not some important parts of a law, approved last
year by the Italian Parliament, that deals with assisted fertility
practices.
There are 4 questions. One should decide whether to: (1) remove the ban on freezing embryos; remove the ban on the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; and remove the ban on carrying out research on human embryos. (2) remove the ban on the limitation on the number of embryos that can be implanted into a woman at any one time. (this number is currently three.) (3) remove the part of the law that refers to the rights of the unborn child. (4) remove the ban on assisted fertility practices involving sperm and eggs coming from people outside the couple involved in the practice.
I think that, on the one hand, these are very technical questions, that are not to be vulgarized in a yes/no contest. This is why we have a parliamentary democracy: to have people who represent us in matters, not only dealing with administrative issues, like how to support public welfare, or when and where to open the hunting season, or where to build the next motorway; but also who represent us in more delicate and important issues, like those touched by the law in question. As a matter of fact, they did represent us when the Parliament voted the law last year. I feel it is a big risk to resort to public sentiments on issues where the real arguments are masked by lots of yelling and short-sighted positions trying to catch "public appeal"; issues that, as it happens, touch on the most important point of all, which is not economy, or getting the most votes, or being popular: but the real meaning, or the ontology, of the human being. I believe it is wrong to ask millions of people to deal all of a sudden with metaphysical questions when (as I will briefly show below) not even most of our politicians seem to be able to understand the questions. I think it is much better to have a debate with informed people (Italy has a National Bioethics Committee tasked to work on these matters) and then come to a parliamentaty vote, as was done when the law was approved (changing, by the way, a situation where anything was permissible). A vote that could review the existing status quo in case it was deemed insufficient, partly wrong, or completely wrong. But bypassing the Parliament in this matter (which, again, deals not with -say- a ban on import/export trading clauses) is in my view a plain wrong approach.
Our Constitution gives us the right, when a referendum is called, to express one of three options. The right to vote and say no, the right to vote and say yes, and the right not to vote at all (according to Italian law, a vote on a referendum is only valid if the 50 per cent quorum is reached). The conscious decision of not voting for this particular referendum is my choice, because I find it a rough, vulgar and dangerous way of dealing with a matter that is of the utmost importance.
But a few words on the matter itself are now in order. As I briefly said, what is at stake is not just technicalities on, for example, how many embryos one should be allowed to use in order to try out assisted fertility practices. Nor is at stake the freedom of conducting medical research, per se. What is being debated here is the intimate meaning of life in general, and of human life in particular. Speaking of "scientific research", or of "liberty of decision", without taking this into account is misleading. I feel the term "pro-life" is abused and loaded with not necessarily positive overtones. But it is undeniable that the real point under discussion here is whether a human life, one that is generated at conception through the union of sperm and egg, is to be understood as a mere biological entity, or not. I conceive there may be people who say it is just that. Without going into too many details, I think this vision is incompatible not only with the law on assisted fertility as we have it in Italy now, but with many other laws, like the prohibition to carry out abortion at any given time (at 1, 3, or 9 months, that is), the prohibition to eugenetically select human beings and suppress undesired members of the species, the prohibition to kill human being who are, for example, not "working" according to some pre-defined functional criteria (which may include handicapped people, of course, but also elderly people, or people with diseases), the prohibition to generate or grow human beings with the purpose of conducting scientific research, or with the purpose of extracting organs to be used elsewhere.
I believe this vision, implied in the technical issues debated in the referendum, is seriously and intimately morally wrong.
Unfortunately, I have not seen these issues debated as they should have been. Unfortunately, the debate tended to focus more on abstract concepts like "liberty of decision", or "liberty of research", or "liberty of conscience", or "feminism vs. misoginism", without realizing (or without having the courage to realize) what is behind. Some people complicated the matter, confusing voters even more, speaking of the distinction between "human being" and the juridical term "human person", without explaining why and how the term "persona" is used, and what the historical and metaphysical foundation of that term is. Some even appealed to Aquinas and his theory of delayed hominization to support the idea that human embryos can be disposed of. Without realizing the context under which Aquinas was speaking of hilozoism and his (clearly erroneous) biological ideas of human conception: while it is patent that removing his erroneous biological idea that the efficient cause of the development of the fetus would be the father's semen (with the material clause allegedly being the menstrual blood), nothing else remains but to posit instantaneous hominization. Some failed to identify, or did not want to identify, the materialistic and functionalist position behind the idea of delayed hominization (or delayed personalism).
Last but not least, I think that, as a personal reminder, it is worthwhile to write down who, among our politicians, said (or said not) what. This is a key point for me because, as I wrote above, I attribute the utmost importance to this matter, which is of a different degree compared to other issues, certainly somewhat important as well, pertaining to political and social life.
I shall say that those who did not have the courage to express their opinion do not fare well in my mind. Actually, they fare much worst than those who, for any given reason, said they would vote "yes" to the referendum.
So, I note that our Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, did not say whether he will vote or not, nor of course whether, in case he decided to vote (at the last minute?), he would vote yes or no. That one of the Vice Prime Ministers, Mr Fini, notwithstanding the fact that he did approve the law when it was voted in the Parliament last year, now changed his mind and decided to vote, three yes, and one no. That the other Vice Prime Minister, Mr Follini, said he would not vote. That the designated opposition leader, Mr Prodi, decided to go and vote, but explicitly refused to say whether he would vote yes or no. That the Presidents of both our Parliamentary Houses (Mr Pera and Mr Casini) decided not to vote. Among those who said it is right to vote yes and suggested to do so, there are the Radical Party, most of the Left Parties, some of the Center Parties, and scattered politicians at right, center, and left. I believe it will be important to remember this at next year's general elections.
There are 4 questions. One should decide whether to: (1) remove the ban on freezing embryos; remove the ban on the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; and remove the ban on carrying out research on human embryos. (2) remove the ban on the limitation on the number of embryos that can be implanted into a woman at any one time. (this number is currently three.) (3) remove the part of the law that refers to the rights of the unborn child. (4) remove the ban on assisted fertility practices involving sperm and eggs coming from people outside the couple involved in the practice.
I think that, on the one hand, these are very technical questions, that are not to be vulgarized in a yes/no contest. This is why we have a parliamentary democracy: to have people who represent us in matters, not only dealing with administrative issues, like how to support public welfare, or when and where to open the hunting season, or where to build the next motorway; but also who represent us in more delicate and important issues, like those touched by the law in question. As a matter of fact, they did represent us when the Parliament voted the law last year. I feel it is a big risk to resort to public sentiments on issues where the real arguments are masked by lots of yelling and short-sighted positions trying to catch "public appeal"; issues that, as it happens, touch on the most important point of all, which is not economy, or getting the most votes, or being popular: but the real meaning, or the ontology, of the human being. I believe it is wrong to ask millions of people to deal all of a sudden with metaphysical questions when (as I will briefly show below) not even most of our politicians seem to be able to understand the questions. I think it is much better to have a debate with informed people (Italy has a National Bioethics Committee tasked to work on these matters) and then come to a parliamentaty vote, as was done when the law was approved (changing, by the way, a situation where anything was permissible). A vote that could review the existing status quo in case it was deemed insufficient, partly wrong, or completely wrong. But bypassing the Parliament in this matter (which, again, deals not with -say- a ban on import/export trading clauses) is in my view a plain wrong approach.
Our Constitution gives us the right, when a referendum is called, to express one of three options. The right to vote and say no, the right to vote and say yes, and the right not to vote at all (according to Italian law, a vote on a referendum is only valid if the 50 per cent quorum is reached). The conscious decision of not voting for this particular referendum is my choice, because I find it a rough, vulgar and dangerous way of dealing with a matter that is of the utmost importance.
But a few words on the matter itself are now in order. As I briefly said, what is at stake is not just technicalities on, for example, how many embryos one should be allowed to use in order to try out assisted fertility practices. Nor is at stake the freedom of conducting medical research, per se. What is being debated here is the intimate meaning of life in general, and of human life in particular. Speaking of "scientific research", or of "liberty of decision", without taking this into account is misleading. I feel the term "pro-life" is abused and loaded with not necessarily positive overtones. But it is undeniable that the real point under discussion here is whether a human life, one that is generated at conception through the union of sperm and egg, is to be understood as a mere biological entity, or not. I conceive there may be people who say it is just that. Without going into too many details, I think this vision is incompatible not only with the law on assisted fertility as we have it in Italy now, but with many other laws, like the prohibition to carry out abortion at any given time (at 1, 3, or 9 months, that is), the prohibition to eugenetically select human beings and suppress undesired members of the species, the prohibition to kill human being who are, for example, not "working" according to some pre-defined functional criteria (which may include handicapped people, of course, but also elderly people, or people with diseases), the prohibition to generate or grow human beings with the purpose of conducting scientific research, or with the purpose of extracting organs to be used elsewhere.
I believe this vision, implied in the technical issues debated in the referendum, is seriously and intimately morally wrong.
Unfortunately, I have not seen these issues debated as they should have been. Unfortunately, the debate tended to focus more on abstract concepts like "liberty of decision", or "liberty of research", or "liberty of conscience", or "feminism vs. misoginism", without realizing (or without having the courage to realize) what is behind. Some people complicated the matter, confusing voters even more, speaking of the distinction between "human being" and the juridical term "human person", without explaining why and how the term "persona" is used, and what the historical and metaphysical foundation of that term is. Some even appealed to Aquinas and his theory of delayed hominization to support the idea that human embryos can be disposed of. Without realizing the context under which Aquinas was speaking of hilozoism and his (clearly erroneous) biological ideas of human conception: while it is patent that removing his erroneous biological idea that the efficient cause of the development of the fetus would be the father's semen (with the material clause allegedly being the menstrual blood), nothing else remains but to posit instantaneous hominization. Some failed to identify, or did not want to identify, the materialistic and functionalist position behind the idea of delayed hominization (or delayed personalism).
Last but not least, I think that, as a personal reminder, it is worthwhile to write down who, among our politicians, said (or said not) what. This is a key point for me because, as I wrote above, I attribute the utmost importance to this matter, which is of a different degree compared to other issues, certainly somewhat important as well, pertaining to political and social life.
I shall say that those who did not have the courage to express their opinion do not fare well in my mind. Actually, they fare much worst than those who, for any given reason, said they would vote "yes" to the referendum.
So, I note that our Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, did not say whether he will vote or not, nor of course whether, in case he decided to vote (at the last minute?), he would vote yes or no. That one of the Vice Prime Ministers, Mr Fini, notwithstanding the fact that he did approve the law when it was voted in the Parliament last year, now changed his mind and decided to vote, three yes, and one no. That the other Vice Prime Minister, Mr Follini, said he would not vote. That the designated opposition leader, Mr Prodi, decided to go and vote, but explicitly refused to say whether he would vote yes or no. That the Presidents of both our Parliamentary Houses (Mr Pera and Mr Casini) decided not to vote. Among those who said it is right to vote yes and suggested to do so, there are the Radical Party, most of the Left Parties, some of the Center Parties, and scattered politicians at right, center, and left. I believe it will be important to remember this at next year's general elections.
