Abstract

VELASQUEZ M, Juan David. The necessary rescue of the concepts of nature and human nature before the challenges of the reflection on bioethics and biolaw. Rev. Fac. Derecho Cienc. Polit. - Univ. Pontif. Bolivar. [online]. 2011, vol.41, n.115, pp.401-426. ISSN 0120-3886.

We live in a world which takes huge steps in the development of technology, and which changes happen each time at greater rapidity. These great advances of the current world, and particularly, the ones occurring in the medicine or the health sciences field, make us face the necessary reflection about the human being and his acting. Is everything that is technically possible lawful? Is there some barrier that can limit the task of science? To respond to these and many other questions, it does not suffice to resort to pragmatism or utility. Deep inside, what it is all about is to defend the dignity of the human being and to protect his fundamental rights, which have not been granted him with regard to some convention, but rather he possesses them for the mere fact of being a human person. Where can we find a solid base on which to found these rights? We believe that it cannot be in any type of consensus, since history has taught us that they may change as the winds blow. The human nature is presented like the foundation on which the rights can be securely settled; nevertheless, today more than ever serious reflection around this concept is made necessary.

Keywords : bioethics; biolaw; metaphysics; nature; human person; abortion; euthanasia; eugenics.

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