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Matters of Life and Death The Bible and Medical Ethics
Matters of Life and Death
The Bible and Medical Ethics
What is medical ethics?
Moral principles that govern the practice of medicine
i.e. the rights and wrongs of decision making on medical issues
Area Issues
Taking Life EuthanasiaAssisted suicideAbortion
Making Life Genetic screeningArtificial reproductionSurrogacyGamete donation‘Designer babies’CloningChimerasGenome editingEmbryonic stem cell research
Faking Life Cognitive enhancementsRobotic enhancementsGenetic enhancements
Ethical decision making
• When does life begin?
• When does life end?
• What is the value of human life? Does it vary/change?
• Who is a parent? (legal/biological/gestational)
• What can/should we do to human lives? (treat or improve/enhance?)
• Where do we draw lines and boundaries?
• Who chooses? (parents/Courts/Parliament/society)
Why? ie. What drives moral thinking?
How most people make decisions
• Gut-feeling - What feels right
• Reason - What makes sense
• Conscience - What doesn’t engender guilt
• Consensus - What everybody's doing
• Consequences - What leads to the best outcome
• Relativism - What's true ‘for you’
• Authority - What so-and-so says
Autonomy Relativism
Technology
I want it! Why not?
Here’s how
Should We ?
Two different ethical approaches
• Secular/Materialist1. Humans are just one of many species and the value of human life depends on its quality 2. The weak should be sacrificed for the strong
• Christian1. Human beings are made in God’s image and all human life is of infinite value 2. The strong should make sacrifices for the weak
When do YOU think life begins?
Why?
At fertilisation?
At implantation? Or a few days?
At 14 days?
At 30 days?
At 5 weeks?
At 9/10 weeks?
At 11 weeks?
At 5 months?
At birth?
Questions raised by embryo screening in Gattaca
When does life begin? Are human embryos human lives or possibilities (nb deleted clip)
What happens to those not selected?
What features should we select for? Illness? Predisposition to disorders?
What limits to freedom, if any? Where draw line?
Who chooses?
Impact on child? Sibling?
Just because we can do something, should we?
Key biblical principles
• The Image of God in Man
• The Beginning and end of Human
Life
• Marriage and the Family
Biblical Perspectives
“Then God said ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”
Gen 1 26-27.
Made in his image
• Human life is sacred:“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the Image of God has God made man”Gen 9v6
• Human life is unique and special:“You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.” (Heb 2:7)
• Humans are valued for who we are not what we do“The thrust of biblical theology places the emphasis on what human beings are by creation, in the stuff of their being, and not on what they can do, on their attributes of functional abilities.” Wyatt
Made in his image
all valued equally:
• rich or poor
• young or old
• slave or free
• male or female
• born or unborn
The Beginning of Human Life
• God became incarnate as an embryo‘…what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’ (Matthew 1:18-20)
‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his
name Jesus.’ (Luke 1:30-35). Note creed too.
• He ‘was like us in every way’, except that he was sinless (Heb 2v14-17)
• Psalmist – knit together, same personal identity‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ (Psalm 51 and 139)
Marriage and the Family
‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?’(Matthew 19: 4-5) (Gen 2:24)
Marriage and the Family
A created relationship
Rooted in the way we have been made
Male/female
Parenthood
‘Be fruitful and increase in number’ (Gen 1v28).
Children are a gift, not a right
‘Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him’ (Ps 127v3)
Some other biblical principles
• Stewardship and Science (Genesis 1:28)
• Justice and equity (2 Chronicles 19:7)
• The ends do not justify the means (Romans 3:8)
• Strong make sacrifices for the weak (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 8:9, Philippians 2:5ff; Galatians 6:2)
• Grace and mercy
Christian ethics applied – Abortion
• The proper context for sex is marriage
• If humans are made in God’s image they are worthy of love, respect and protection and it is wrong to take innocent human life
• Abortion damages women’s physical, mental and spiritual health
• Christians should act both to protect unborn children and to care and provide for pregnant mothers - both lives matter
• Emphasis on positive alternatives – sex within marriage, antenatal care, support, adoption
Christian ethics applied – embryo screening
• Value of life from the beginning (spare embryos)
• Do we value every human for who they are or what they can DO?
• Children a gift not a right – not a commodity
• Healing is good (Jesus healed) but not ‘enhance’ Jesus didn’t improve on the original design!
• Two parents
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
• For self-defence
• For the sake of others
• For stewardship and citizenship reasons
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
for self-defence
‘Christians in the UK face problems in living out their faith and these problems have been mostly caused and exacerbated by social, cultural and legal changes over the past decade.’ Clearing the Ground 2012
In his resignation speech Tim Farron MP said that:
‘We are kidding ourselves if we think we live in a tolerant liberal society.’ (July 2017)
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
for self-defence
• Freedom of conscience:
abortions and abortion referrals
contraception
gender re-assignment
• talking about beliefs
• Baking cakes! Marriage registrars
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
For the sake of others
Loving our neighbour
Care and compassion
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
for the sake of others
Sex and relationship education
Protecting the vulnerable at/near the end of life Counselling/supporting women with unplanned pregnancy
Prenatal screening/valuing those with disability
Protecting the unborn – our unborn neighbour
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
for morality and justice
God’s view of law
'Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people‘ (Isaiah 10:1,2)
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
Because we are stewards and citizens
Owners have rights
Stewards have responsibilities
Living in Babylon
4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 ‘Build houses and settle
down; plant gardens and eat what they produce… Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to
which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will
prosper.’
(Jeremiah 29:4-7)
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
Because we are stewards and citizens
Care for the family (especially children):
anonymous gamete donation, surrogacy, same sex parenting, adoption, genome editing, prenatal screening, people with disabilities
Why do we need to engage with ethical issues?
• For self-defence
• For the sake of others
• For stewardship and citizenship reasons
‘I urge then that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions.’ 1
Tim 2:-2
Being Christ-like in ethics
• Share the mind of Christ (A Christian worldview)
• Hold the commands of Christ
• Have the character of Christ
• Carry the cross of Christ
Be informed
CMF Files (cmf.org.uk/publications)
Blogs (www.cmfblog.org.uk)
CARE Impact Direct (prayer points)
