In modern century Immanuel Kant is the first person to separate morality from religion at the work of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. He remains God as an unknown One while people seek their autonomy of moral behavior. From the last two decades, the philosophy of medicine vigorously developed is mainly
‧
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
engaged in bioethics study. Many of professionals named themselves as bioethicists.
Previously, philosophical anthropology, social philosophy, medical epistemology, medical ontology does non-existent and have rare products in relation to medical science (Have, Carson & Burns, 1997:105). The basic problem of human dignity of the unborn child at the public domains of our time mainly arises from the Universal Declaration of Human Right of the United Nations in 1948 (Glendon, 1998).
Although The ultimate value of ‘human dignity’ is affirmed at the very beginning of the Preamble, and accorded again at the article 1; and it is woven into the text at three key points, connecting the Declaration to the Charter in the fifth clause of the Preamble, while introducing the social and economic rights in the ‘chapeau’ at Article 22 and Article 23’s reference to ‘an existence worthy of human dignity’ (Glendon, 1998: 1172), the key point still remains vague at the specific image of human person.
In the Declaration human beings are ‘endowed with reason and conscience’. What is the definition of human beings? Does it include unborn child? We may strictly criticize this document if we call its thirty articles as a pick-and-choose cafeteria style.
To some extent it is right like philosopher Michel Villey noted some universal rights contradicting with each other such as liberty and equality. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre also warned to combine the fragment of different conceptual schemes and to rest upon incommensurable moral premises is like a recipe of the mischief. The working committee is the United Nations Educational, scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which composed by many leading thinkers, such as Jacques Maritain, University philosopher Richard Makeon and chaired by Cambridge historian E. H. Carr. The fundamental contribution of the Declaration is the universal human rights come to an agreement among divergent economic, political, social, religious and cultures.
There are numerous significant research results on female diseases in the medieval studies that would indirectly be helpful to grasp the unborn child. In The Book of Dina, which is the medieval Hebrew treatise around the thirteenth century, remained the problems and diseases of the womb. Its manuscript provides the basic knowledge of gynecological prescriptions, such as menstrual problem and birth problem. Another treatise called Zikhron ha-Holayim ha-Hovim bi-Khley ha-Herayon (Recollection [about] the diseases occurring in the generating organs), is the medical treatise around the fourteenth century, which provided us the knowledge of medical problem and diseases affecting both men and women. One chapter of this Hebrew treatise directly dealt with the difficulties of birth, such as sterility, caused by diseases (Barkei, 1988)
‧
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
The practitioners that advocate abortion rights of women by critical choices tend to view religions, especially Roman Catholic as obstructive, dogmatic and anti-choice.
The side of supporting the human dignity of the unborn child called pro-lifers, and the other side tend to support the autonomy of the mother called pro-choice. The fetus leaves no room to live and the argument of pro-choice strongly doubts the human dignity of the unborn child. Supporters of each side claim that their value has priority over that of the other side. One major argument is whether or not the fetus is a person.
From the early days of ancient Greek, Rome and the time of Augustine, abortion was practiced frequently by the pagans. The wealthy were more common adopted it than the poor. The most frequent reasons were to conceal their illicit sexual activities and the rich did not enjoy the effects of pregnancy on their figures. The rich preferred not to get a big and trouble womb with bouncing babies (Gorman, 1982). John Noonan, who is the main philosopher of catholic anti-abortion raises the fundamental argument that fetus is the human beings. His basic theological criteria are potentiality and whoever is conceived of human being is human being. Based on these presumptions, it’s wrong to kill humans, however poor, week and defenseless. The embryos lack the opportunity to develop their potential to be the human beings.
Therefore, it’s morally wrong to kill embryo (Noonan, 1968). The Geneva Declaration of the Rights of Child of 1924 had ever protected the rights of the child in term of both materially and spiritually.
In the 1960s, many countries have yield the basic human dignity of the unborn child to the private realm and leave it into the hands of sex-seeking people. If followed the concept of Hippocrates, the father of medical science, the human dignity of unborn child has been strongly declared and protected. The Hippocratic Oath has assumed and represented a point of view from the ancient Greek medical community which attributed as the Oath of Pythagoreans (Miles, 2004; 176). The World Medical Association adopted the idea of Hippocratic Oath, known as the Declaration of Geneva Physician’s Oath, and respected it as human life from the moment of conception in 1948. This notable tradition has ever been honored but now seems to be obscure even among the medical professionals. Dose the unborn child have the rights to live? Do only women and mother have the rights to abortion? The debate on the human dignity of the unborn child and the rights to abortion struggles long at the demographic battle.
With the influence of the concept of personality from Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the pioneer of medical sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) is the first scholar to adopt the notions of the role of parent-child to analyze the role between physician and
‧
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
patient in the field of medical sociology (Cockerham, 2001: 5-6). Disease, pain, suffer, health and death are the main issues of medical sociology. The medical knowledge about disease, pain, suffer, health and death was restricted within the medical development. Furthermore, the classes, races, economies and resources are also some key elements of influencing the tension between the medical professionals and patients. The social factors of drug use, alcoholic problem, and eating disorder are some new issues of medical sociology. Basically medical history may provide the basic outlines of how the modern states developed to control on the diseases, epidemics and populations from the seventeenth century while the Westphalia contract was signed to cease the religious war between Protestant in Germany and Roman Catholic in 1648. This year has been considered as the landmark of the birth of modern states.