Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

	in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant, a leak causes damage 
in the genetic code. new borns risk being born with severe genetic defects,
such as missing sensory organs (no eyes, no ears). apart from these defects,
the new borns will be perfectly able to live a full life. their changed
genetic codes will be inherited by some of their offspring.

	the situation now:

	in the early stages of pregnancy the foetus can be examined for such
defects and aborted. given the above circumstances, is it ok that the foetus 
is aborted if its genetic code is defective?

	the situation tomorrow:

	genetic defects in the egg and the sperm can be corrected before 
fertilisation, so that only healthy children are born. given the above 
circumstances, is it ok that the genetic defects are corrected before 
fertilisation?


if you were personally affected, how would you answer these questions?



andreas.

the questions here are quite fundamental, and as i see it, very simple to
answer from fundamentalist positions.


a fundamentalist christian answer might be:

 all that happens is the will of god. the nuclear leak is the
 will of god and so are its consequences. therefore abortion 
 is wrong. the development of genetic engineering is also the 
 will of god, therefore correcting genetic code is right.

a fundamentalist big $$$$'s answer:

 the existance of the nuclear power plant presented a calculated
 risk, the leak is due to human failure and is the price for 
 progression. to correct the effect of human failure both abortion 
 and the correcting of genetic code are the right things to do.


in essence, the nuclear leak and its consequences is a result of man's 
tinkering with nature (whether this happens with the consent or god or not).

whatever way you look at it though, it seems clear that from nuclear power 
plants to changing genetic codes (the so called "secret of life"), we as 
humanity, progress in giant strides in our tinkering with nature and with 
accepting increased risks. after all, we progress into the unknown and 
progress we must. at least this seems to be the general idea.

are there alternative answers to the ones which i could come up with?



andreas.

I'd like to take this on a little different path, Andreas, if you don't mind.

I have a disorder called Progressive Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  The key to
its prevention, and possibly even its cure, is somehow tied to genetics.

Naturally, I look forward to the day that SMA is as preventable as many of
the diseases people at one time commonly died from.  SMA, according to an
article in the Los Angeles Times (December 30, 1994), is the most common
genetic cause of death in infants.

Shalom,
Richard

Re: .1 Andreas

These are difficult moral questions that go to the heart of the question of
the value of unborn life.  I'll give it a shot.

>	in the early stages of pregnancy the foetus can be examined for such
>defects and aborted. given the above circumstances, is it ok that the foetus 
>is aborted if its genetic code is defective?

I would say yes.  My view is that each fetus represents a *potential*
human life, one candidate among millions of ova and spermatazoa for
actually becoming a fully developed human being.  Among all these candidate
humans we should try to make sure that the ones who are born are healthy
and fully formed.

What makes this difficult is that some physically impaired people who are
living today say they are glad they were born and they are offended by the
suggestion that maybe some of them should have been aborted.  I'm not
saying that any of these people don't deserve to live.  To me there is a
tremendous difference between a defective fetus, which is only a potential
human being, and that same fetus after it has actually developed into a
living person.  The living person is just as precious and worthy of life
as I am.

As an example, say that Mary and Todd have decided that they will only
have one child.  They conceive, but the ultrasound shows that the fetus
is defective and will suffer severe birth defects.  Let's call this fetus-
which-might-develop-into-a-child Bob.  If Mary and Todd decide to abort
fetus-Bob, they will conceive another child, who we will assume is healthy
and is named Bill.

Was Bob not deserving of life?  I'd turn this around and ask, if Bob was
allowed to grow into a child and if Mary and Todd indeed decided not to
have any more children, was Bill not deserving of life?  What about their
other possible future children who were never born: Judy, Chris, and Dave?
In my view these were all only *potential* people who would only be born
if their parents acted in a certain way.

Once Bob, Bill, Judy or whoever is born, that child gains rights
independent of the parents, and one of those rights is to be born as
healthy as possible.  If the Bill-fetus has a better chance of being born
as a healthy baby than the Bob-fetus then I think the Bill-fetus should be
the one that's given the opportunity to live.  But whether it's Bob or
Bill that's actually born, either one would be an equally precious person.

>	the situation tomorrow:
>
>	genetic defects in the egg and the sperm can be corrected before 
>fertilisation, so that only healthy children are born. given the above 
>circumstances, is it ok that the genetic defects are corrected before 
>fertilisation?

I think so, based on the principle that a child who is born has the right
to be brought into the world as healthy as possible.  There is a danger
that genetic engineering could be taken too far and used in an attempt to
produce a "master race", and I'm not at exactly what point I'd object to
this.

>if you were personally affected, how would you answer these questions?

Since I don't expect to be reincarnated I don't think I'll become a
defective fetus in a future life.  By "personally affected" I assume
you're talking anout what I would do if I found out that a fetus I'd sired
was defective.  My answer would be the same as what I've described above.

				-- Bob

how about shutting down all nuclear plants bob, instead of subjecting yourself 
to answering that difficult moral question of abortion? :-)

i mean really, why should you have to find yourself in the position of having
to face that question *just* because you happen to live close to a nuclear 
power plant? if that power plant hadn't been there, there wouldn't have been a 
leak...

but that may be unrealistic. nuclear power plants are part of progress, they
are of service and you're bound to live with some risk. is progress 'good' or 
'bad'? as i've read it, progress can be categorised as 'bad' on an ethical basis
if the outcome of progress poses an irreversible catastrophic threat. the key
terms being irreversibility and scale. not that an ethical basis would make a
strong argument against nuclear power plants though! :-)

one day surely, we will be able to do without nuclear power plants due to better
exploits of safer energy providers. and one day we may have a sufficiently good
and safe handle on genetic engineering technology to ensure that humanity 
evolves with 'healthy', albeit genetically manipulated, humans. 

in a sense, this technology does 'correct' the side-effects of modern medicine.
a weird thought, really. like i wouldn't have survived as a child without the
help of medicine (i have an allergy), and my children wouldn't either. so in 
a sense the technology helps us reduce the cost of medical treatment by 
'producing' only healthy humans. 

but what would we do with a world of healthy humans (if that ever happened)?
wouldn't we get bored out of our wits, now that we have the technology to take 
us anywhere we want? what if, just for fun, we crossed our genetic code with
that of lesser creatures, like dogs say. i mean we may want to converse sensibly
with our pets, don't you think? ;-) our pets would then have a consciousness,
wouldn't they, but would they also have a soul? what a thought!

assuming that we ensured that noone could create a "master race", since we 
humans are the "master race", would this make genetic engineering good, bad,
moral, immoral, permissible or what? i mean who wouldn't want to speak to their
pet? :-)


andreas.

What do you want to talk about in this topic?

	1. Abortion of potentially deformed fetuses?
	2. Nuclear power plants, pesticides, smoking, alcohol?
	3. Genetic intervention to create a "perfect" race?
	4. Genetic intervention to cure diseases?

I strongly reject #1.

I would like to see proper safeguards to avoid health problems from #2.

I reject #3.

I encourage #4.

And so does the Roman Catholic Church.

/john

john, i can't help seeing genetic engineering as the human being's most 
significant step in his/her 'liberation' from the 'dictate of nature.'

though i doubt whether we can yet fully fathom the extent of this change. 
as the paradigm shifts in agriculture from breeding/cultivating to genetic 
intervention, and in medicine from treatment/care to genetic intervention, 
what will this do to our image of nature and to our self-image?

as nature's 'wisdom' as stored in the genes, the result of countless 
replications, mutations and selections, risks becoming obsolete, does not
it's creator, god, also risk becoming obsolete?

bottom line: our self-image is in good deal derived from our image of nature, 
what will a fundamental change in the imgae of nature do to the image of self?


andreas.