A Reprodução Humana para Além do Útero

Abstract

This thesis is based on the need to understand the structural changes that are taking place with the advent of new technologies for human reproduction. The aim is to assess whether these innovations are at the service of the human being, from the perspective of the Ethics of Alterity, by defining potential contributions and, at the same time, establishing ethical limits by formulating possible challenging confrontations, typical of the exteriority of the class that lives of work, subject to preventive regulation, with regard to the centralizing aspects of the totality that owns technological capital. It thus provides a critical analysis that establishes both the structural contours of this new technological era and the possible direct impacts on the Brazilian social reality. The research deals with the main guidelines for preventive regulation in the field of innovation, IP (Industrial Property) and the need to promote research in order to consolidate this human incubator that is transformative due to its positive impacts, revolutionary in secular historical terms. A scientific innovation that, in the future, will be able to separate human gestation from the woman's body (“artificial uterus”, for marketing purposes), in other words, a medical device that, when commercialized, will certainly set the tone for a new era capable of generating life. Based on the presuppositions of the alterity, present in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, the research problem has been deciphered by presenting the main limits and ethical possibilities of handling this new technology under development. The main research hypothesis was consolidated, expressly stating that the Principle of Reproductive Autonomy is the greatest contribution of this human advance and, at the same time, confirming in this hypothetical dimension that the desire to start a family is the main ethical limit to the instrumentalization of this new reproductive technology, which must meet the defining demands of the Legal Structure of Kinship in Brazil. This technology, which today is only partially developed to its full potential, is already capable of saving the lives of pregnant women and premature babies. From this noble motivation stems the importance of the topic for legal political philosophy and public investment as a priority for improving these technological resources at the service of human beings, especially via SUS (Unified Health System). The chosen philosophical path was to democratize access to the new reproductive technologies in order to establish an effective public family planning policy for everyone in Brazil. In order to achieve the objectives set, the study was carried out using bibliographical techniques (indirect and secondary sources) and documents, i.e. legal, historical and philosophical books, documents, court cases, journals, articles and electronic research relating to the problem in question. The multiple fields of knowledge have consolidated a transdisciplinary approach within the area of concentration “Legal Thought and Social Relations” and the research line “Theory and Philosophy of Law” of the PPGD/UERJ.