Persoonwees en die morele status van die menslike embrio

Abstract

During the last decades the moral status of the human embryo has been compromised in numerous ways. A survey of these reveals the consistent influence of the ideology of the freedom of the human person. Screening the criteria for assigning moral status (if at all) to the human embryo, 'personhood’ is the main consideration. In this article the relevance of this criterion is examined from a Christian perspective on man and his ethical life. The conclusion is that the old Scholastic dualism of body and soul has been traded in for a dichotomy of person and body. Personhood is then defined in purely humanistic terms as qualified by rationality, self-conscious decisions, et cetera. A n integral view of man becomes impossible and man’s bodily existence is devalued. Ethically the results are devastating. The paradigm for treating the ethical issues in this regard should be far more comprehensive and extensive, as only the Christian world view can guarantee.