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1What is Natural Law?
St Thomas Aquinas believed that all humans share the sme purpose that is given to us by God. It is a system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society. It requires people to follow five primary precepts and secondary precepts (laws that derive from the primary precepts). The primary precepts are: 1 to protect the innocent 2 to reproduce 3 to educate 4 to live in an ordered society 5 to worship god |
Genetic Engineering at first seems to run contrary to Natural Law. Natural Law is based on the principle that God designed the world. Genetic Engineering involves tampering with or changing the way the world is. However, we need to be cautious here. All of medicine involves changing the way the world is in some way. The real question is whether a therapy or procedure is intended to allow an organ or part of the body to fulfil its purpose, or to carry out some other purpose.
- Natural Law would therefore be against enhancement genetic engineering, but may be happy with somatic-cell therapies that corrected disorders.
- Natural Law may be against using animals to produce pharmaceuticals or to grow organs for transplant as this runs contrary to their God-given purpose. This isn't clear cut. Most Natural Law theologians tend to see animals as lower beings and accept that they may be used to, for example, feed humans. I don't know of any Natural Law theologians who are against the use of animals to test pharmaceuticals, which is clearly not what they were designed for. The justification may be that one of the primary precepts of Aquinas' Natural Law Theory is to protect and preserve human life, in which case 'pharming' and xenotransplantation would be seen as acceptable.
- Natural Law may well support GM Foods. We mustn't get confused between natural and artificial with this theory. Natural Law has no problem with artificial limbs, synthetic fibres etc. as they help humans fulfil their purpose. The real question is, will GM food be better at feeding the world? Potentially, modifying food to increase yield could reduce costs, feeding more people in Africa and reducing human suffering. The concerns from a Natural Law point of view would therefore be the unknown effects (will it harm humans - contrary to one of the primary precepts), and the uneven distribution of knowledge (already western companies are patenting genes and charging developing countries to use them).
- However, overall it seems that Natural Law may well be against most of genetic engineering's uses and properties.