Christian Bioethics Advance Access originally published online on March 19, 2009
Christian Bioethics 2009 15(1):31-53; doi:10.1093/cb/cbp005
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This article appears in the following Christian Bioethics issue: European Bioethics II-Disparate Hopes and Fears [View the issue table of contents]
Christian Engagement with Public Bioethics in Britain: The Case of Human Admixed Embryos
University of Wales, Lampeter, UK
Address correspondence to: Neil Messer, PhD, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Wales, Lampeter, UK. E-mail: n.messer{at}lamp.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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This paper offers an assessment of the prospects for Christian engagement with public bioethical debates in a contemporary British context. One recent example, the debate provoked by proposed legislation for research involving human admixed embryos, is examined briefly. It is argued that this debate has some problematic features that are characteristic of public ethical debates in this context. Next, a proposal is offered as to how such bioethical questions may be approached from within a Christian theological tradition (specifically, a Reformed Protestant tradition). This proposed approach makes use of four "diagnostic questions" to assess whether technological proposals and practices such as the creation of human admixed embryos can be consistent with the distinctive Christian narrative of creation, sin, salvation through Christ, and promised future hope. The final section offers some reflections on how Christians and churches might engage, on the basis of this theological approach, with public ethical debates such as the one about admixed embryos.
Keywords: Alasdair MacIntyre, Christian ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, human admixed embryos, Karl Barth, Protestantism, public bioethical debates