| Sumario: | This work discusses Thomistic anthropology in relation to contemporary scientific knowledge. The author presents the argument that human-ness and even personhood begins at conception. The ethical implications of this view are also considered. Recently some Thomistic analyzes have appeared, notably by Pasnau, Dombrowski and Deltete, and Maguire, which apply Aquinas's anthropological views to today's bioethical issues in a profoundly problematic way. After presenting Aristotelian, biblical, and scientific aspects of human-ness, this work arrives at its primary goal, a new and comprehensive Thomistic definition of the human person: 'A human person is a rational, embodied member of the species Homo sapiens (the species being determined by the genetic structure of its embodiment), created in God's image but fallen, at any level of development, from conception to death'. Secondarily, the point brought out from this definition is that if Aquinas's philosophical principles (not his outdated scientific views) are coupled with today's genetic and embryological information.
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