Biotechnology: A pastoral reflection

Theology Today, Apr 2002 by Cole-Turner, Ronald

With exaggerated longings and expectations, and with the fantasy of risk-free lives, we race to erect a three-stage defense against the imperfections of our biology. First, we use genetic testing to predict disease in advance, to prevent it if possible, perhaps by preventing birth. Second, because we cannot prevent all disease or injury, we search for treatments through gene therapy and stem cells, especially those derived from embryos. Gene therapy, just now showing success, aims to undo the effects of genetic problems in the body by modifying the genetic information in living cells. Gene therapy will be used, not just for the usual genetic diseases of cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, but for cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders, as we learn ways to attack these diseases by modifying genes. Stem-cell technology, still in the earliest phases of development, puts immature cells into the body in order to regenerate tissues and organs, thereby allowing the body to rebuild itself. These two approaches, combined with traditional medicine, will give us powers to heal that were unimaginable to earlier generations.

Third, we will, in time, learn to modify our genes to enhance ourselves, to improve upon what nature normally gives us. In a way, this is what we do with vaccines, not to mention orthodontics and most of what we call cosmetic surgery. A regenerated body is not quite enough, and we will find ways to improve things by modifying our genes, whether those in our bodies as adults or those in our offspring at conception. At this point, it is entirely unclear how far we can go with the project of human improvement. Can we engineer resistance to cancer and other diseases? We are learning about genes that are linked to longevity. We can insert these genes into other species, and when we do, they live longer. Can we learn to do this with our own descendents? Why not enhance intelligence, height, or skin tone (to fit what is fashionable), or alter our mood? No one knows now what we will learn to do, but it is pretty clear what we want. We are anxious, competitive, offended by age and decline, unable to accept loss. These needs drive our technology, shape its agenda, and ultimately pervert its moral meaning. What begins as a technology to relieve human pain becomes a technology to relieve the pain of being human.

GENETICS AS REJECTION OF THE CREATOR

More than any prior age, ours has a kind of moral duty to fix nature. Philip Hefner warns us, not so much about biotechnology per se, but about biotechnology's worldview, according to which "all of nature should finally be re-shaped in the ways that humans deem most desirable.... We have the obligation to do this re-shaping. Nature unshaped by human hands, when it is in our advantage to do so, somehow stands as a judgment on us-we have not lived up to our potential and our obligations.... All disease should be eliminated or at least countered."4 At least in part, we want genetics because we are discontent with nature as we find it.