Resumo

CARRASCO, María Alejandra  e  VENTURA-JUNCA, Patricio. Urgencia de la Bioética ante la Biotecnología: ¿Cómo identificar un ser humano unicelular?. Teol. vida [online]. 2010, vol.51, n.1-2, pp. 179-231. ISSN 0049-3449.  doi: 10.4067/S0049-34492010000100008.

In recent decades, bioethics has become a crucial issue for the church. The dynamics of such study, which is self-propelled and advances independently of ethical criteria, is imminently threatening to human dignity. It is now possible to artificially produce human beings, even without the involvement of gametes. What still hasn't been established is an index that recognizes when a manipulated cell is still a cell -eventually pluripotent and therefore possessing great therapeutic promise- or when it has become a tot potent cell, a zygote, a human organism, namely a person. Science, philosophy and technology, as is shown in this paper, come together to reflect on bioethics in the urgent need to find these signs, given that biotechnology is still advancing and a position must be taken on its discoveries. The Church cannot remain silent as it beholds possible artificial production, instrumentalization and destruction of people who, despite being in the single-cell phase and having come to the world as artifacts, are still reflections of the face of God.

Palavras-chave : bioethics; biotechnology; organism; person; stem cells; nuclear transfer; beginning of life.