Gene therapy is the modification of the human genetic code to prevent disease or cure illness. This technology is in its infancy and remains confined to experimental clinical trials. Once the present barriers are overcome, gene therapy will confront humanity with a host of ethical challenges. Therapies targeted to the genes of germ-line cells will introduce permanent changes to the human gene pool. Furthermore, nonmedical gene modifications have the potential to introduce a new form of eugenics into our society by which some members attempt to become inherently superior to others and humanity is re-engineered to man-made specifications. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 45–50.

The purpose of the Instruction Dignitas personae, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is not only to reaffirm the validity of the teaching laid out in Donum vitae (1987), with regard to both the principles on which it is based and the moral evaluations which it expresses, but to add needed clarification on reproductive technologies in the light of more recent developments. In addition to the reproductive technologies discussed in Dignitas personae, namely, homologous and heterologous artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, the author also discusses other reproductive technologies, not covered by the Instruction, such as gamete intrafallopian transfer, zygote intrafallopian transfer, tubal embryo transfer, and pronuclear-stage embryo transfer. After analyzing each of these the author offers a general ethical evaluation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 51–59.

The author shows how, by means of adoption, spouses become parents together and as the fruit of their marital love. The account serves two purposes. First, it allows a rebuttal of two types of objections to embryo adoption: that embryo adoption fails to respect the mutuality of marital love and that it in some way “constructs” parenthood. Second, the account makes it possible to recognize a deficiency in the way Dignitas personae understands embryo adoption, a deficiency indicated by the Instruction’s discussion of embryo adoption in the context of “treatments for infertility.” The author suggests that the Instruction is guilty of a misuse of terms and possibly a misunderstanding of the nature of adoption as such. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 75–85.

Embryo adoption is an act of artificial impregnation. Artificial impregnation is analogous to artificial insemination. The conditions under which artificial impregnation is ethically acceptable may therefore be the same as the conditions under which artificial insemination is ethically acceptable. But artificial insemination is ethically acceptable only when it assists conjugal union to attain its natural purpose. If artificial impregnation is likewise ethically acceptable only insofar as it assists and does not replace conjugal union, then the presence or absence of the conjugal act itself is the fundamental moral criterion by which to judge whether to permit or exclude artificial impregnation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 111–122.