Right to Life in Contemporary Ethical Reflections and the Social Doctrine of the Church

Suvremeno se doba, usprkos mnogim neriješenim pitanjima, pa i ambivalentnosti tehničkoga i znanstvenog napretka, može pohvaliti mnogobrojnim pozitivnim postignućima na dobrobit pojedinca, društva i čitava čovječanstva. U najveća svakako spada kodeks ljudskih prava. Njihov se utjecaj proteže na sve sfere osobnoga i zajedničkoga života i žele ga učiniti čovječnijim. Razvoj modernih demokratskih društava ne bi bez njih bio zamisliv. S druge strane, upravo na ovom području postoje i mnogi problemi. Ne samo da se ljudska prava u mnogim zemljama svijeta nekažnjeno gaze, nego problem postoji i u samom njihovu razumijevanju i tumačenju. Vrlo su raznoliki vrijednosni sustavi, ne samo između kultura i država, nego i unutar pojedinih pluralističkih društava, što za sobom povlači različito shvaćanje i tumačenje ljudskih prava. U ovom članku želimo predstaviti shvaćanja prava na život u liberalizmu, utilitarizmu i relativizmu, kao najčešće zastupljenim ideološkim strujama u ovo naše vrijeme, i usporediti ih sa shvaćanjima ovoga temeljnog prava u socijalnom nauku Katoličke crkve. Lišeno svojega utemeljenja na transcendentnom i bez normativne osnove u prirodnom zakonu i ljudskom dostojanstvu pravo na život se u spomenutim ideološkim strujama pretvara u svoju vlastitu osnovu ili svoj temelj nalazi u ljudskoj volji. Međutim, svaki takav pokušaj na koncu završava tragično. U modernoj inflaciji raznih, često međusobno proturječnih prava, pravo na život postaje predmetom manipulacija i žrtvom neograničene slobode pojedinca, njegovih interesa ili političkih odluka. Za kršćane i Crkvu pitanje ljudskih prava, pa prema tomu i prava na život, predstavlja poseban izazov. Činjenica je da se ideja ljudskih prava začela u kršćanskoj, zapadnjačkoj kulturi te da je od kršćanstva dobila odlučujući impuls: čovjek kao osoba slika je Boga. Iz toga slijedi da svaki čovjek posjeduje nepovrjedivo dostojanstvo i neotuđiva prava. Ta istina predstavlja srž ljudskih prava i kritički korektiv protiv svake manipulacije i zlouporabe. Zbog toga su pojave, kao što su: ubojstvo, pobačaj, eutanazija te razni oblici manipulacija čovjekovim životom, za kojima moderni čovjek često poseže kao za svojim pravom, za kršćansko shvaćanje potpuno neprihvatljive. Temelj čovjekova prava jest sam Bog. U današnjoj, liberalnoj kulturi odgovor na pitanje utemeljenja čovjekovih prava postaje sve urgentnija potreba.In spite of the unresolved issues and the ambivalence about the advances in technology and science, modern time can still be admired for its positive developments made to the benefit of an individual, the society and the entire mankind. One of its major achievements is the Human Rights Code. Human rights cover all the spheres of both private and social life, making them more humane. The development of modern democratic societies would be completely impossible without these rights. On the other hand, this is the area with many open issues. Not only are human rights violated without repercussions in many countries, but there are also some difficulties in their interpretation and understanding. Value systems differ from culture to culture, from one country to another; certain pluralist societies comprise various, which results in different understandings and interpretations of human rights. This article endeavors to depict the understandings of the right to life in liberalism, utilitarianism and relativism as in predominant ideological mainstreams of our time, and to compare them to the understanding of this basic right in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. Deprived of its transcendental origins and the normative foundations in natural law and human dignity, the right to life, within the mentioned ideological mainstreams, is either centered around itself, or finds its support in human will. However, each effort of the kind ends up tragically. In the modern inflation of often controversial rights, right to life has become the subject to manipulation and the victim of an individual’s unlimited freedom, interests or political decisions. To Christians and to the Church the issue of human rights, the right to life included, presents an exceptional challenge. The fact is that the very idea of human rights has its origins in Christian, Western culture and that Christianity provided this idea with a decisive impetus: man as a person is the very image of God. As a result of this each person possesses inviolable human dignity and inalienable rights. This truth presents the very essence of human rights and the critical corrective against any kind of manipulation and abuse. Thus the phenomena such as murder, abortion, euthanasia and other forms of manipulation with human life, which a modern man often resorts to as to kinds of right, are totally unacceptable to Christianity. God himself is the foundation of human rights. In modern liberal culture there is an increasing urgency to find the answer to the question of the foundation of human rights