¿IS THE NASCITURUS A HUMAN PERSON, HOLDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS?
Every person sincerely open to truth and goodness, even amid difficulties and uncertainties, with the light of reason and not without the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in their hearts the sacred value of human life from its beginning until its end, and affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected. In recognition of this right human relations and the political community is based. (John Paul II)
The preceding sentence sums up the need to refer us to the Natural Law in order to recognize the personhood of the unborn child. According to the International Theological Commission, the concept of natural law presupposes the idea that nature is for man, bearer of an ethical message, and an implicit moral norm which human reason follows to act according to that norm.
We must recognize the essence of every human being and recognize that everyone is an individual. The human being is not a thing, a what, that exists in society to satisfy the desires of someone else; a man is, a who. A man consists of two underlying principles: a soul and a body.
Regarding to the human essence, it is necessary to accept the importance of human dignity as the basis grounded in natural law. However, it is regrettable to witness how human dignity is threatened by scientific and technological advances overshadowed by the culture of death, which involves crimes against the person. Therefore, this article focuses on the importance of natural law as the foundation of human rights established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) in order to highlight human dignity from conception to natural death.
Every society must be based on natural law in order to provide protection to the human person and safeguard their dignity against any threat, and must promote freedom, truth, justice and solidarity, four values that are based on an ethical order according to natural law to protect every individual of the human species (including the unborn child). However, it is necessary to answer who the person is, in order to understand why defending the unborn life is important. Person means any individual of the human species, that is, the human being, man endowed with a rational soul. Everyone has an intrinsic dignity that makes us superior to all beings; that is why a man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others. The human person from conception potentially has the elements that will take him to the actuality of the person. For the same reason, elderly or disabled persons who cannot adequately perform all their vital functions, does not exclude them from being persons (to have personhood).
Natural moral law as a set of rules or norms by nature plays a decisive role to defend the life of the unborn child, because through the inherent law of our being we are able to know the difference between good and evil. This law leads to the recognition of the dignity of the essence of the person. Otherwise, if moral relativism is practiced, the rational basis defending the rights of humanity would disappear. The UDHR was not ratified based on relativistic ideas, personal ideologies, but instead, was proclaimed as a common standard for mankind all nations. Human rights were created not to discriminate but to respect all human beings, regardless of their level of development: embryonic stage, children, adult, and elderly.
Human rights are those that the person possesses by virtue of his/her humanity, according to the preamble of the UDHR; therefore, the first requirement is to be a human being. Promoting respect for life and dignity of each person depends on the answer to be given to the question what a person is? The person is the main purpose of all rights.
Spaemann said: “None of the qualities is the person, because none of them are substance, they are accidents, as are changing; a person is a man, not a quality of man, and the being of the person is the life of man”.Therefore, the possession of rights is a duty that every human being should have because we never stop being. Unborn or disabled, we remain what we are because of our humanity and personhood; an embryo cannot be an object if it belongs to mankind.
Since the introduction of bioethics at the international context, the problem to respond when life begins became more evident. When the egg is fertilized by a sperm it becomes a zygote and when the zygote divides becomes an embryo. Accordingly, Dr. Jerome Leujene said: “The Hippocratic medicine tells me I have to respect him not because he is strong, free and because he has a good health, I respect him because he is a human being”. In the case of the embryo, the bodily identity is the identity of an individual human, a human being by nature. The soul and the body are the absolute value of human beings. The embryo is a human being, a person with rights, including the fundamental right to life. So, as Aristotle and Aquinas said, subsistence, the act of being, is what defines man as a person and essence is what makes the embryo being what it is, an individual living being. From the moment of conception the embryo acquires its being and that being is human and if a human being is a person from the moment of his act of being as we already explained, it is reasonable to say that the embryo has dignity (with its own individuality and genetics); the embodiment (Being a person) is a metaphysical process that is received from conception.
The importance of the embryos legal protection is basic in order to defend mankind. As C. Lara said: “Therefore the law is a mere instrument of the person, created by and for the person (…) The law does no sets, but recognizes the legal personality based on the existence of the human person (…) the right is not what creates the person, because personality is an essential attribute of every human being, by its rational and spiritual being.”
Human life is the reason for the existence of other rights and duties and endangering life is not justified under any circumstances. Human rights protect and recognize, but do not create natural and fundamental rights that belong to all human beings simply because they are human. As Cicero said, “Certainly there is a true law: the reason is according to nature, is in all men, and is immutable and eternal; its precepts are calling to duty, its bans deviate from error (…) is an offense replace it with a contrary law. It is prohibited not to practice any of its provisions, no one has the possibility to repeal it completely.”
This is the law that allows to respect another person, a universal and inalienable right for all mankind. Without the right to life there would be no solid basis for respecting others, society would be a place in which everyone would have valid justification for not respecting the lives of others.
The right to life is not determined by the consensus of the majority. The right to life exists by the mere fact of being rational beings endowed with bodily and spiritual dimension and therefore an intrinsic dignity that no one can ignore. There is no scientific and legal, or anthropological and moral justification for violating the rights of the unborn. Thomas Aquinas said: “Human law is such as it is in accordance with reason and thus derives from the eternal law. Instead, when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law … any law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law.” For this reason, unborn children should be protected from laws allowing abortion because they violates the right to life. The unborn child has human rights that derive from its nature of being a person.
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