Biomedical Issues I

(The following is from Norman Geisler’s ebook “Christian Ethics”)

Technology has created new ethical issues. Artificial insemination, test-tube babies, surrogate mothers, organ transplantation, organ harvesting, gene-splicing, [genetic surgery, transgender operations, stem-cell transplants, cryonics, and cloning] are all medical realities. There is no longer a question of whether they can be done; it is only a question of whether they ‘ought’ to be done.

Nowhere are the lines of demarcation between the secular humanist and Christian perspectives clearer than in biomedical issues. This is because ethical decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are made from within a worldview. And it is in the human role of deciding what is right and wrong that the two positions are most evidently in conflict.

Paul Kurtz, the author of Humanist Manifesto II, set forth the humanist position well in Forbidden Fruit: “We, not God, are responsible for our destiny. Accordingly we must create our own ethical universes. We should seek to transform a blind and conscious morality into a rationally based one, retaining the best wisdom of the past but devising new ethical principles and judging them by their consequences and testing them in the context of lived experience.”

One consequence to be kept in mind is the ‘quality of life’ [issue]. Genetic improvement of the race is also based on this [issue]. Nobel prizewinner Dr. James Watson argued that no newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment: “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice…[to] allow the child to die…and save a lot of misery and suffering.”

All secular humanists believe in biological evolution. Many believe that because humans have advanced to such a technological level, they have a duty to guide the future evolution of the race. For some, the hope goes beyond a bionic human to genetically engineered humans. Gene-splicing holds the promise of creating and patenting new animals. Sperm banks, artificial insemination, and surrogate mothers now make it possible to breed superior human beings. The ultimate goal is a human being totally engineered to specifications, the creation of a superior breed. Prenatal tests can already warn parents of genetically impure offspring, and abortion can eliminate them. The final goal is for a completely fabricated human being.

Because the advancement of medical science depends on experimentation, many have taken advantage of the abortion business to use the live babies for experimentation. Some scientists speak openly of growing fetuses for spare parts.

The Bible makes it unmistakably clear that we are not sovereign over our own life. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away (Job 1:21); God said to Moses “I put to death and I bring to life” (Deut 32:39); God created life (Gen 1); and He alone sustains it (Acts 17:28); Hence, we have no right to take innocent life [and do what we want with it.]

Evolutionists often boast of their desires to forward the evolutionary process and produce a superior race. Indeed, the [title] of Darwin’s famous book [was] “On the Origen of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” (1859). Carrying Darwin’s idea forward, Adolf Hitler used natural selection as his model for producing the superior race. He wrote, “If nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one.” Why? “Because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage being, may thus be rendered futile.”

Ends do not justify means. Means must have their own justification. Even ends need justification. Not every goal is good, even if it is highly desired by many people. Many Germans desired the obliteration of the Jews, but this desire does not justify it. If good ends justified any means, then killing political dissenters to produce grater national harmony would be justifiable, and killing AIDs patients in order to curb the spread of this deadly disease would be morally justified.

While the humanist approach to biomedical ethics is to ‘play God’, the Christian approach is to use medical advances to ‘serve God’. Humanists believe that humankind is sovereign over life; Christians hold that God is sovereign over life. Treatment should always be voluntary, not compulsory. The medical task is to improve life, not to create it. God has only made us the maintenance crew, not the engineers. Our goal is the more modest one of genetic fitness, not the grandiose one of genetic fabrication. We work in cooperation with nature, not to have control over it.

Some basic assumptions in the modern humanistic approach to biomedical ethics need to be exposed and analyzed from a Christian perspective.

1. If it can be done, it should be done – There seems to be an implied ethic in the progress of science dictating that whatever humans can invent, they should invent and use. Just because something is technologically possible does not make it morally permissible. It is technologically possible to destroy the human race by nuclear war… Technological progress is not necessarily ethical progress. It may be ethical regress instead.

2. The end justifies the means – This fallacy, already examined, becomes emotionally appealing when the factor of suffering is added. Why, we are asked, should not brain tissue from aborted babies be used to help cure those with Parkinson’s disease? Why should people be allowed to suffer when we have the means of alleviating it? The answer surely is that the ‘means are evil’. Killing innocent human beings to alleviate the suffering of another is not a morally justifiable means of attaining this ‘end’.

[Here are] some of the basic principles involved in a Christian approach to these problems [in biomedical ethics].

1. The sovereignty of God – God has made us, and we belong to him. This being the case, humans have no right to seek control of human life, to try to ‘advance’ its evolution or to tinker with it genetically.

2. The dignity of humanity – Humans are made in God’s image and likeness. This is why God instituted capital punishment for ‘capital’ crimes. Human beings have such dignity that it is even wrong to curse them – James 3:9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.

The dignity of human life includes the body, which should be cared for and even buried with respect, anticipating its final resurrection (1 Cor 15).

1. The sanctity of life – Human life has both dignity and sanctity. The dignity calls for respect, the sanctity for reverence. [Human life should] be considered holy. Humans are not God, but we are godlike. We were made ‘a little lower than the angels’ and were also ‘crowned with glory and honor’. This sacredness of life as it uniquely reflects the very character of God, is the basis for a pro-life stance from conception to [natural] death. No matter how badly human life may be scarred or disfigured [or dysfunctional], it is still godlike and deserves to be treated as the sacred thing it is.

Here are some basic guidelines for crucial [biomedical] issues.

1. Voluntary versus compulsory procedures – Flowing from the fact of freedom and dignity is the principle of autonomy, which entails informed consent. Even otherwise legitimate medical procedures are morally wrong unless there is informed consent to them. Where the patient is not able to do this because of irrationality or unconsciousness, no organs should be taken and no medical procedure undertaken except what is necessary to preserve the person’s life. This is called a best-interest judgment, as opposed to a substituted judgment.

2. Mercy killing versus mercifully allowing death – As previously noted, there is an important difference between taking an innocent life and allowing a death. The former is always wrong; the latter is sometimes right. Intentionally taking an innocent human life is murder, but allowing a natural death may be an act of mercy.

3. Preserving life versus prolonging death – The command “Thou shalt not kill” implies that we should help prevent the unnatural death of innocent people as well. The Bible declares that sins of omission are wrong, as are sins of commission (Jm 4:17). In this sense, there is a duty to prolong human life, and if medical or technical aids are available, they should be rightly utilized. However, the duty to preserve life should be distinguished from a supposed obligation to prolong death. Nowhere does the Bible declare a duty to prolong the agony of death. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

4. Artificial means versus natural means – Every attempt should be made to preserve a human life, by whatever means are available. Certainly food, water, and air should never be withheld from human beings, no matter how small, old, or sick they are. Taking away these natural means of sustaining life is tantamount to causing death. And knowingly causing the death of innocent human beings is murder. Furthermore, when heroic means (technology) are available, they should be used to preserve human life. However, there is no divine duty to use heroic or unnatural means to prolong human death. Hence, when sustenance of life is artificial and the process of death is irreversible, there is no moral obligation to prolong life by artificial means.

5. Correcting versus creating life – This is an imperfect world. God did not plan it that way; humankind has made a mess of it. The effects of humanity’s fall are evident in the physical world and have taken their toll on human health. There is no biblical imperative saying that we cannot work to correct these imperfections. The Bible actually recommends medicine (1 Tim 5:23) and prayer for healing (Jm 5:14).