Euler Renato WESTPHAL

Original title: O aborto de vida inútil: a vida entre a secularização e o sagrado

Published in

Keywords: Bioethics, Cultural Heritage, Sustainability, Theology, Universal Human Rights.

This article approached the utilitarian ethic view about the human dignity. According to utilitarianism, the human life does not have dignity and it does not have worth by itself. The infanticide could be a possibility to free the parents of children who have any handicaps. Human life only has value if there is self-consciousness and a life project. From that moment on, the genetic improvement would also be justified by the PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis) so that children would not get serious diseases. Which are the limits between eugenics and therapy, among utility and human dignity? Alberto Giubilini, Francesca Minerva, Peter Singer, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Joachim Jeremias, Oscar Cullmann were partners of discussion in this article. It is remarked that the human dignity, the universal rights of human being are heritages of the Judeo-Christian theology. God unconditionally loves the sinner, the patient, the weak and the excluded. From that moment on, the Christian theology indicates to the solidarity of God to those who are considered, by the liberal eugenic, “not worth living”. The critical dialogue among bioethics and theology has the aim of seeking criteria so that the human life will not be instrumentalized by interests of human designers.