[Ethical analysis and commentary of Dignitas Personae document: from continuity toward the innovation]

In 2008 [corrected] the Catholic Church published a document entitled Dignitas Personae (DP) about a range of bioethical issues related to the areas of assisted reproduction and human genetics. The objective of this paper is analyzing the issues treated in the same and comments the novelty of his arguments in the bioethical thinking of the Catholic Church. DP document has an introduction, three parts and a conclusion. The publication of document is due to recent advances that have occurred in recent years in the two areas mentioned above. This advances were not analyzed in a previously document called Donum Vitae (DV). DP analyzes these new advances from the anthropological and ethical approaches of DV. Not intending to contradict DV, the DP applies the arguments of DV to new situations. In both the title and elsewhere in the text it is affirmed that the human embryo has the dignity of human person. From this principle DP analyzes issues such as the status of the human embryo, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, (ICSI), preimplantation diagnosis, embryo cryopreservation, contragestion, embryo reduction etc. In these matters, as in the questions such as human genetics, cloning, gene therapy or the use of biological material obtained from abortions, the document reaffirms previous ideas of the Catholic Church, applies them to new problems or develops new arguments that will require further reflection. In conclusion, the document is very useful for understanding the current bioethical thinking of the Catholic Church on these issues; it clarifies certain disputes, suggesting new arguments, and leaves other issues to free discussion and subsequent interventions of the Catholic Magisterium. Finally, the document reaffirms the commitment of the Catholic Church to the poor of our techno-scientific society, the proletariat of the new century: human embryos.