Personality Rights Within a Bioethical Context

The personality rights are strongly linked to the quality of human being; they are rights that belong to every individual due to the very fact that he is a person. They refer mainly to the protection of the physical and psychical characteristics of the human being, to his individuality or personality. In the current times, the personality rights are seriously threatened by the scientific developments of biology and medicine. At the same time, questions of ethical and moral nature may arise. At the confluence of all these, we talk about bioethics. The New Civil code represents, for the moment and in the near perspective of its enforcement, the regulation that systemizes the majority of the bioethical problems. Not all the personality rights suffer equally when the scientific developments become effective in the immediate reality. The first place, directly connected with the effects of biomedicine, is occupied by the rights that regard the integrity of the person, and then the subjective rights closely connected to the moral integrity and social interaction of the individual follow. The right to life, the right to health, the right to physical and psychical integrity, the right to dispose of oneself, are regulated by the New Civil code and are the first ones regarded within the research on human beings. The right to a private life, regulated by the Romanian Constitution and the New Civil code represents another personality right that may suffer prejudicial violations by means of biomedical activities. We particularly have in mind the medical secrecy and the protection of personal data. The right to one’s own image and the right to dignity also bring the condition of consest, so that, under no circumstances will the streets ahead biomedical technologies interfere with the human rights. The bioethical concerns must not transform the human being into an object; science must not develop uncontrollably, following profit criteria. The solution is the provision of an optimum equilibrium between the scientific developments and the rights that express the quintessence of the human being.