Human Dignity and Reproductive Technology

What is it that worries us about cloning? Why do technologies such as in vitro fertilization threaten the family? How does modern biological science threaten the very life it studies? These are important questions that demand a careful examination of science, technology, and the dignity of the human person.

The March 2002 symposium Human Dignity and Reproductive Technology brought together philosophers, theologians, scientists, lawyers, and scholars from across the United States to discuss these questions.

The essays of this book are the contributions of the symposium's participants. These essays do not simply catalogue recent ethical debates concerning reproduction technologies. Rather, they examine how these technologies impact human life and its innate, undeniable dignity. In accordance with the tradition of the Catholic Church, human dignity is examined from the perspectives of both faith and reason so that the good of technology may promote the dignity of the human person.

Nicholas C. Lund-Molfese, M.A., J.D. is Coordinator of the Ministry in Higher Education Agency of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Director of the Integritas Institute of the John Paul II Newman Center, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Michael L. Kelly is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago studying Biology and the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine. He is an Ethics Fellow and member of the Healthcare Ethics Advisory Board at the Integritas Institute of the John Paul II Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago.