Original scientific paper
Critical evaluation of the value substance of legal regulation of the so-called medically assisted procreation
Tonči Matulić
Abstract
In this contribution the author presents a critical evaluation of the value substance of legal regulation of the so-called medically assisted procreation for Croatian society. The contribution is divided in five separate but meaningfully interdependent parts which critically analyze some arguments “pro”, latent conflict of interest, value contradictions, “capitulation” of law due to revolutionization of ethics, value substance of legal regulation which consists of occasional and thus incomplete evaluation of the status of the human embryo, marital institution and primacy of the child’s interest, autonomy of medicine and freedom of scientific research. The starting point of the author’s analysis are some public arguments, civilizational developments and cultural metamorphoses which try to mask the crucial value of the problem and make it insignificant, that is, to degrade the essential values which are at issue in the field of the so-called medically assisted procreation. In this respect, the author first presents critical analyses of the concept of infertility treatment in the context of the so-called medically assisted procreation and demographic issues, on the one hand, and (bio)technological revolutionizing of ethics by subjecting it to the requirements of (bio)technological developments, on the other hand. Then the author critically analyses what he determines as the rise of the latent conflict of interest in the contemporary position of the so-called medically assisted procreation in Croatia. The author further points out that in the circumstances of radical revolutionizing of ethics neither law has remained intact, so that today there is often the case of “capitulation” of law in the sense of disorientation and confusion due to biomedical and biotechnological challenges which knock at the door of legal regulation. This is best verified by value contradictions which occur in some European countries between, for instance, the law on abortion and the law on the so-called medically assisted procreation. Therefore, in social circumstances of dramatic epistemological changes, radical criticism of the quite recent concept of ethics and law and growing value disorientation due to the strengthening of individualism, it has become very difficult, if not impossible, to reach a general social consensus on fundamental value issues connected with the consequences of bio-technologization and, consequently, economization of medical practice in general and medicalization of human birth by the methods and techniques of the so-called medically assisted procreation specifically. In spite of all this, the author of the contribution, in its fifth part, through four items as four crucial value moments, analyses in detail some essential value aspects and points out the decisive value elements which should form the starting value substance in formulating legal regulation of the so-called medically assisted procreation in Croatian society.
Keywords
medically assisted procreation; ethics; law; conflict of interest; status of the human embryo; right to life; child’s welfare; marriage; autonomy; freedom
Hrčak ID:
5053
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2006.
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