More than 6,000 participants followed the 3rd evening on Bioethics training dedicated to « political action for rights and justice”.
Tugdual Derville introduced the evening by sharing his accurate and clear-headed political vision, inviting us to be aware that “we are ‘all politicians” and calling for us to get involved in serving justice.” Alliance VITA’s General Deputy suggested using a compass for us to share a comprehensive humanism: to respect the human being in its entirety and all human beings, all aspects of life, and the life of all. Then he outlined his advice for acting “truthfully for life”: accept the complexity; adopt a language serving the truth, work towards one’s own freedom, act with prudence and be audacious to link up with others.
For his part, Thibaud Collin, philosopher, author, and speaker, explained the fondamentals, roles, capacities and pertinence of “natural law”. This expert on moral and political philosophy subjects demonstrated that natural law offers indispensable reference points for democracy, to fully implement the respect of fundamental human rights.
Caroline Roux, Alliance VITA’s Deputy General Representative and director of VITA International, broadcasting from Washington introduced a clip of perspectives on bioethical challenges abroad.
By video, 3 persons were interviewed. From Switzerland, François-Xavier Putallaz, professor of Philosophy at the University in Fribourg. For Canada : journalist, Michèle Boulva. And for Switzerland, Carine Brochier, project coordinator at the European Bioethics Institute in Brussels who organizes regional cycles of the Bioethics conferences.
Guest speaker as a « Great Founder » during this 3rd evening was Christian de Cacqueray, Director of Catholic Funeral Services. Having wide experience with individuals in mourning, he was invited to explain how he reacted, alerted, and got involved when he became aware of the unfairness of the pending Health bill.
The Government’s article, which aims to forbid embalming at home, thus making more complex the paper work, and more difficult the mourning process of the deceased person, appeared to him as unfair, useless, and harmful. He thus became involved, by meeting with MP’s and journalists, in defense of the common good, to block this reform. Thanks to this experience, the author of “Parcours d’adieux, chemins de vie” (Farewell Paths, Journeys for Life) is able to remind all of us that death has a message for all human beings on the essence of existence, and this is the reason why “death must not be confiscated from us”.
Then the participants were invited to view the video entitled » I am a GMO”. This short clip, which humorously presents a serious subject, brings to light the era which is unfolding before our eyes: that of “custom-made babies”. The emergence of techniques allowing human genome editing raise serious ethical issues.
Alliance VITA’s General Secretary and Head of Political Relations, Henri de Soos then invited us to reflect on the adequate means for a fair political action, in the noble sense of the term, meaning to deal with town affairs and to be at the service of people. Using some examples of action plans, he provided us principles, approaches, and reference points which can be useful to all of us.
The evening concluded by a round table discussion with the 4 invited guests, questions and answers from the 120 interconnected cities, which allowed further insight on issues such as relativism, freedom of conscience, and the importance of voting according to one’s conscience (..)
>> Unprecedented for the next and last evening :
Dedicated to “Global action in favor of a culture of life”, this 4th evening will be concluded by Tugdual Derville‘s speech available live via Internet and visible by all those who wish to do so via Alliance VITA’s internet site. The objective is to invite each individual to reflect on a capital question which concerns all of us: faced with a humanity which is today capable of self-destruction, how can one “choose humanity”?
With its 6,000 participants, 120 cities in France, and 11 outside France, this unprecedented cycle of bioethical training has been genuinely successful, including on social networks since the evening was widely shared: for the second time our hashtag #UDVie was in the top 5 on Twitter.
