General aspects on the influence of the modern bio-medical techniques on the human body.
Pusca, Florentina ; Boroi, Alexandru ; Dumitrache, Ana-Alina 等
Abstract: Human life is inseparably corporal and spiritual
concurrently. ]n the virtue of its substantial communion with the
spiritual element, the human body cannot be considered to be just a
complex of tissue, organs and functions and cannot be put on the same
level with animal bodies, but is a constitutive part of the person
through which it is manifested and expressed. It is truism that the
science, expression of human knowledge is necessary, infinite and
independent from ethical messages. Science has multiplied the creating
powers of humans and social progress but also created destructive risks
for humans and environment, for the genetic diversity of nature, even
for the survival of the species.
Key words: human life, bio-medical techniques, human cloning
1. INTRODUCTION
Divinity created the world out on nothing. The human, creating
himself, acquired thought and feeling that, although seem to be
independent, have been limited by the restrictions and prescriptions
imposed by society. In this sense, in the relation individual- society,
the concept of society reflects certain dominant fundamental rules and
principles or systems of values that characterize social life. The
objective causes and especially the social ones determine the different
human behavior and manners of actions so that the social restrictions
acquire a mandatory normative aspect. The general argument resulting
from the relations of the individual with the society consists in the
fact that society develops in a positive manner because, within the
complex process of education, the individual integrates in the normative
and evolutional structure of society (Tanasescu et al., 2000).
2. GENERAL ASPECTS ON THE INFLUENTS OF THE MODERN BIO-MEDICAL
Even if through inferior human behavior social contradictions can
be reached, manifested through different forms, through social
processing the essence of a social existence is accomplished, in which
these particular acts are included, condensed in the general
undisputable manifestations of the individuals (Stoica Constantin &
Neculau, 1998). For this reason, a faulty individual behavior, in
comparison with others more organized, once punished becomes an
integrant part of the social system, dynamic, integrator in the human
action phenomenon. The process of differentiation and integration of the
individual behaviors contributes to the appearance and identification of
some behavior patterns of maximum complexity that, although having a lot
of meanings and significations (Dobrinoiu et. al, 2004) still have an
intrinsic rationality in which the behavioral balance is identified
under the shape of general social requests. The individual behavior
becomes more the result of learning rather than heredity so that, if
under the aspect of the reaction pattern to external stimulations, it
does not seem to have a special signification, regarding the creation of
a behavioral prototype of a crowd, or society, it represents the basic
rule according to which its members act relatively stable and constant.
Within the human behavioral structure, both biological and educational
elements are included. The behavioral phenomenon, structuring actions
and individual reactions as a manner of human interaction, is protected
under the aspect of dignity and identity of the human being. Science has
discovered that life appeared together with the matter, in its constant
quest for the pair of lonely electrons, has combined three lifeless
molecules into a bio-molecule. These three molecules were nitrogen, a
pentose and a phosphate. The bio molecule created macromolecules
representing proteins, carbohydrate and fat that, acting as enzymes,
transporters, hormones, receptors and antibodies, organized in a cell.
The humans are composed of tens of billions of these cells and the brain
contains a hundred billions. The inorganic matter is infinite. Life is
the transient biological phenomenon in which the inorganic turned into
organic maintains itself independent until the return in inorganic
matter. Any human person contains not only spirit but also body and
through the body, the person itself is accomplished in its concrete
reality.
The most authentic expression of the technical- scientific
contemporary revolution is genetic discoveries that have placed
bioethics in the paroxysmal situation of their human significance as the
genetic research transcends the individual sphere and can become sources
of public anguish both for the horizontal effects (in family) as well as
vertical (descendent), both for private life and individual as well as
for the community. The contemporary doctrine sustained that the human
body can be considered a thing, but not any ordinary thing. The civil
code provisioned that only things that are commercially can be the
subject of conventions, which lead to the following statement: "in
situations in which the human body cannot make the object of
conventions, this could be due to the fact that it is a trade off- but a
thing". Is the person the owner of his/her body or a simple user?
The human body is not a thing, is the person itself. If we would
recognize the individual a right of property on his body, it means that
we have to consider as being valid all their related and specific
dispositional acts.
The human body cannot represent an object of law and the human,
assimilated to the physical person, cannot be but a subject of law and
not an object of law. In this context, the human body, complete and
viable, in the actual conception of doctrine and jurisprudence, cannot
be sold or donated because it would mean the reestablishment of slavery
and turn the person in an object of property rights, while the elements
of the human body can, in exceptional cases, make the object of acts of
dispositions, in the extent allowed by law, because they are not a
person in the judicial sense of the word. This situation can be analyzed
from the perspective of personal anthropology, according to which the
fetus and embryo have the value of a person, the slave of yesterday,
deprived from the value of person and the recognition of the dignity of
the person can today be the embryo frozen and used for experiments. The
jurists have opposed to the accreditation of the right of the individual
to dispose of their own body, motivating the fact that this type of
recognition would lead to the self degradation of humans. Modern
biotechnology has indicated that it can become one of the possible
motors of the development of society in the third millennium, being
compared with revolutionary methods that have changed human society
forever such as the Great Industrial Revolution, the discovery of the
atomic bomb or spatial research, promises a considerable medical
progress and a possible improvement of the human condition but at the
same time, has the potential to create unwanted or unpredictable
problems with an impact that can be deep on the right to life, corporal
integrity and health of individuals, human dignity but also on the
structure of society as we know it now. In its wider sense, the concept
of "biotechnology" refers to the technologies using living
organisms (virus, bacteria, animal or vegetal cells coming from simple
or complex organisms) or their sub cellular components purified in order
to obtain useful stocks of commercial products, in order to improve the
characteristics of plants, animals or humans or to create microorganisms
for specific purposes (Bustamante & Bowra, 2002). The progress
registered by molecular biology beginning with the discovery and
functioning of DNA in 1953 and continuing with the discovery of the
human genome and also of multiple genetic structures of other animal
species has represented the basis of necessary knowledge in order to
make the profile, copy and manipulate the genotype of plants, animals
and humans. This allows a wide variety of very advanced biotechnological
techniques, including: Gene therapy for the diagnosis and treatment of
disease; Fabrication of medicine for treating specific disease; Genetic
identification in order to help solving cases in civil or criminal law;
Biosensors created by genetic engineering for a variety of applications;
Cloning in order to reproduce genetically identical organisms
(reproductive cloning) or transplant organs (therapeutic reproduction);
Genetically modified organisms in order to convert specific properties
for certain purposes. All these techniques leading to the appearance of
a multitude of products and a new industry and to the disappearance of
others have not only a potentially positive effect but also a deep
negative one. In order to prevent the negative consequence of using
biotechnology and prevent serious problems that could emerge, many
states have adopted criminal dispositions against genetic manipulation
and the funding of scientific research in cloning was forbidden. The
former president of the United States of America, Bill Clinton said:
"We have to accept the serious ethical and moral issued raise by
this extraordinary revolution". Same as the former American
president, the British premier Tony Blair underlined that "humanity
has the duty to use the new valuable information in a responsible manner
and for the benefit of the entire humanity. Numerous conflicts have
arisen as a result of ethical medicine development reproductive. Most
call into question the right of individuals to control not their own
body but also the fate of embryos resulting from their sex cells. But
the most controversial issue raises the fate of surplus embryos produced
by fertilization in vitro and reimplanted. They have to be destroyed or
to be preserved and for what purpose? Can they be used in the cosmetic
industry or this method constitutes a serious violation of principles of
natural law? Have they the rights of a human being? Those who accept the
use of new reproductive technologies agree that there are risks,
misinformation and abuse, but which can be remedied by will, counseling,
social responsibility and oversight of practitioners of research on
reproduction.
The most important thing is that no matter how and where
development begins, whether it is genetic or artificial insemination or
not, whatever we do, everything will get anyone with any reproductive
technology, is an unpredictable son or a daughter, not different of any
other children. Reproductive technologies are irrelevant to society.
They help individuals to found families. In vitro fertilization was to
destroy the society 30 years ago, but it has no effect on people who do
not need it. Should committees of experts, lawyers, scientists dealing
with other issues to be involved in determining the morality of
different ways in which people decide for themselves?
3. CONCLUSION
Concerning application of new scientific technologies in law, is to
note their usefulness in ensuring, in a higher coefficient, the truth
and to reduce the margin of error in protecting judicial bodies of false
accusations of abuse. Therefore, not technology itself must be rejected,
but their incorrect application in conflict with human rights. New
technologies should avoid the uncertain feelings of public opinion,
which oscillates between the desire for progress and the fear of
development. Human cloning is one of the greater issues that has been
raised and continues to be raised in modern science but also regarding
political decisions. As John Harris suggestively indicated, "We are
on the verge of a major breakthrough. The revolution in molecular and
genetic biology will give us the possibility to deviate and control
human evolution in an unprecedented measure. It will give us the
possibility to create new forms of life that will put order in all the
existing forms of life. The decision we are about to make does not
entail if we are to use this solution or not but how and to what extent.
Of course that it would have been easier to pretend that the revolution
did not take place and continue to live as before but it would be
useless and it would involve us in causing enormous suffering that could
be avoided.
There is no secure way. If we won't succeed in producing
change at the level of human beings, the result might be even worse than
it should be, in the future. If we make incorrect modifications, we will
find ourselves in the same situation.
I believe that we should learn to take responsibility and stop
considering that not doing anything is wiser than doing something".
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