A Christian Perspective on Genetics

By Andrew Rollinson

© 1994 The Christian Institute

Contents

Introduction

Major Developments in Contemporary Genetics

Key Moral Questions

Biblical and Theological Reflections

Questions


Introduction

I wonder if you know the story of the air journey where the captain's calm voice comes over the aeroplane's address system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet, and cruising at 700 miles per hour. I have some good news for you and some bad news. The good news is We are making very good time. The bad news is We are lost!"

I often think that is a parable of medical ethics in general, and genetics in particular. We are making astonishingly good time, with a bewildering explosion in genetic biotechnology; and yet morally, I sometimes wonder if we are lost.

Such has been the progress in genetics, that my own university textbooks of the early seventies are positively antiquarian! In 1970 not a single human gene was isolated; now, with the huge amount of energy and international collaboration being put into the Human Genome Project, more that 10 genes a week are being located. In 1978, one of the leaders in the field said that human gene therapy was a far distant prospect, and yet today clinical trials are well under way with cystic fibrosis. In a book entitled "Issues of Life and Death", the 1975 London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity by Norman Anderson, he commented that in vitro fertilisation was a long way off. Three years later in July 1978, we witnessed the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, and now a bewildering array of IVF scenarios are on offer at NHS and private infertility *clinics. And so I could go on.

Clearly, this subject is one of great importance and great challenge. In the UK, some 7000 babies a year (about 1% of all babies born) are born with an obvious single gene inherited defect; and about 1600 human diseases have some genetic origin (1) ; so here is an area of medical research that holds out great promise. But alongside great promise is great concern.

Gareth Jones, an anatomy professor in New Zealand wrote, "The current biomedical revolution may well have more widespread consequences for human life than either the Copernican or Darwinian revolutions.... Unlike social revolutions about how people live, this revolution is concerned with what human beings are, and what they are going to be". (2)

Similarly Oliver O'Donovan, his book, "Begotten or Made", says, "Our technological revolution is, in some ways, more truly a revolution than anything that has yet been, for it not only expresses a mass desire to mould our future in a new shape; but it has the technique which makes that project practicable". (3)

What I would like to do is first to summarise, briefly and cursorily, the major areas of development in genetics today; then to list, equally briefly, some of the moral questions thrown up; and then to spend the majority of the time reflecting on an appropriate Christian response.

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Major Developments in Contemporary Genetics

In Vitro Fertilisation

Back in 1966, Dr. Robert Edwards, a reproductive physiologist, demonstrated for the first time how human ova could be cultured in vitro, and 3 years later achieved fertilisation in vitro. Combining his technical skill, with the pioneering gynaecological skills of Mr. Patrick Steptoe, the first so called test-tube baby was born, in 1978.

This technique has not only hugely increased the range of options in treating infertility, particularly with the ability to freeze embryos and sperm, but, for our purposes, it has created a whole new situation for genetic research. It has allowed experimentation on live early human embryos, genetic screening at this very early stage, and a whole range of research options, hitherto confined to veterinary physiology.

And one of these options is:

Cloning

Cloning is the ability to develop a large number of identical individuals from a single cell. When I was studying zoology in the Oxford Department, one of our great heroes was Dr. John Gurdon, who 10 years before, had been the first to transfer the nucleus of a frog cell, and inject it into an unfertilised frog egg, and discovered that that egg began to divide and cloned the first frog cells. Such nuclear transfer is now standard breeding practice in the veterinary world, and you can (apparently) find cloned embryos of high quality stock at large industrial shows.

With the advent of human IVF, a much simpler way of cloning is to tease out the cells of the earliest embryo. It has been found that, at this very early stage, each cell is totipotent, that is, capable of acting as a separate embryo. This is, of course, very useful in genetic testing. You can separate off one such totipotent cell, check it for genetic aberrations, and if it is OK, you can assume the original embryo is safe to implant in the womb.

One of the most exciting cloning developments is the cloning of specific sorts of somatic (body) cells for therapeutic purposes. The cloning of skin cells, for example, for skin grafting, whereas before, after a major burn, skin from another part of the patient's body would have to be used. Or cloning white blood cells to harvest particular antibodies, or cloning bone marrow cells, saving the agonising wait for compatible donors.

Genetic Selection

Genetic selection can be both negative or positive; stock weeding, or stock breeding. Voluntary genetic counselling has for many years been a key to genetic selection. Through amniocentesis, or chorion villus sampling, various genetic problems can be detected. Spina bifida, for example, is one of the commonest congenital abnormalities in the UK, with an incidence of 1-8/1000 births, in different geographical locations.(4) Following the discovery of a link between raised levels of a certain substance (AFP - alpha-feto-protein) in the amniotic fluid and spina bifida back in 1972, ante natal detection has become a reality. Of course, what is on offer is not the prevention of a spina bifida child, but the termination of a spina bifida foetus.

Since the advent of IVF, screening is now possible for a whole range of genetic abnormalities such as sex-linked diseases like haemophilia, and allows termination at the embryo, (rather than the foetal) stage.

In a celebrated break-through, Prof. Robert Winston at Hammersmith, utilising the discovery of the cystic fibrosis gene in 1989, was able to effectively use genetic screening. Both parents being counselled carried the defective gene, and their first child had developed the disease. Without intervention the parents faced a 1 in 4 chance of a second child with the disease. But through IVF genetic screening a second child was born free of the disease in 1992.

Positive genetic selection involves gamete selection or the choice of IVF produced embryos. One of the most contentious issues at the moment is the fertilisation of ova with X or Y sperm depending whether a boy or girl has been ordered!

Gene Therapy

This involves the location and identification of specific genes, in such a way that defective genes can be reprogrammed. This is one of the major motivations for the huge Human Genome Project underway, which will probably take about 15 years to locate the 50,000 - 100,000 genes on the 46 human chromosomes. It has led to a massive increase in very high tech, so called micro chemical instrumentation, which can analyse and decode the base-pair sequences of the DNA, at great speed and efficiency.

Defective genes can be reprogrammed in a variety of different ways; one well-rehearsed technique is using viruses to carry normal DNA material, to reprogram defective material. Great strides have been taken in the area of muscular dystrophy, where muscle cells are particularly open to receiving genetic material. Work in the USA has succeeded (in mice) in transforming colon cancer cells back to normal cells by inserting the correct gene, and as already mentioned, the most celebrated progress in human genetic therapy is with cystic fibrosis.

One critical distinction to be born in mind is the distinction between gene therapy in already differentiated cells (somatic cells) such as muscle or colon cells whose altered genetic material will not be passed on to a future generation; and genetic alteration of the germ-line cells (the reproductive tissues, which give rise to the gametes) where any changes will obviously be permanently passed on from one generation to the next.

Genetic Treatments

This again is a very complex and high tech area where human, fungal, bacterial and other cells are cleverly reprogrammed to produce drugs, vaccines and hormones to assist in various diseases. So, for example, Factor 8, which is a complex protein that assists blood clotting and is essential for treating haemophiliacs, is now being produced in large quantities by human gene transfer into hamster cells. A huge amount of work is going on, as you can imagine, to combat the HIV virus; and because normal vaccines are not effective, work is going on possibly to genetically engineer a designed anti-virus.

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Key Moral Questions

Well, they are numerous - but let me just list some of the key ones.

The Embryo

First, and a fundamental question to so much of IVF, (where spare embryos or de-selected embryos are destroyed or experimented on) is - "What is the moral status of the human embryo?"

Is it a developing, potential human person, or a human person with potential - or what?

And then there are ethical and legal questions about freezing embryos and sperm. In August 1984 a French court ruled that Mme Corinne Parpalaix should be allowed to be inseminated with the frozen sperm of her husband who had died 2 years previously. (5) Cloning of human embryos has been outlawed under the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act of 1990, as has cross-fertilisation between human and other species. However, there was greater wooliness over such issues as IVF babies for lesbian couples.

Use of Foetal Material

This is an issue very much in focus at the moment. I have here the public consultation document on the use of donated ovarian tissue by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Perhaps the most contentious issue in this, is the donation of ovarian tissue from aborted foetuses, the immature oocytes of which could be matured in vitro and used for infertility treatment. The John Polkinghorne Report of 1989 recommends consent by the women having the abortion and a separation of those carrying out the abortion and those doing research, to save undue pressure on those about to have an abortion. But it raises huge questions, not least the psychological effect on children who discover they were born from donated material.

Sex-selection and Genetic Enhancement

What would the ability to choose the sex of your child do to population dynamics, particularly in male-dominated cultures? And who makes the choices, and on what basis, if a designer approach of positive eugenics was possible and permissible?

You may know the story of Bernard Shaw being approached by the dancer Isadora Duncan, suggesting they should have a child, because she said, "her body and his brains would make a marvellous combination"! Shaw replied: "Yes madam, but the snag would be if it had your brains and my body!"

The Legal and Social Implications of Personal Genetic Profiles

It is already the case that those known to be HIV positive can be discriminated against by an employer or insurance company; and the more that is known about our personal genetic profile, the more there is a risk of genetic discrimination - genetic branding: geneticism (following sexism and ageism).

There are complex legal issues over the patenting of trans-genic animals and now, with the Human Genome Project, over human genes.

Right to a Child

Norman Anderson, a Christian lawyer, asks, "On what rational grounds is it urged that while sexual desire ought not to be indulged at will, parental desire may be?"

Animal Welfare

Not only is it undoubtedly the case that suffering goes on, but we now have such things as the creation of the onco-mouse, specifically designed to develop cancer after 90 days; (indeed the first animal to be patented by Harvard University).

Genetic Release

What effect will the release of new transgenic species have on the environment? What about the accidental escape of dangerous viruses? The EC has urged each member country to produce legislation on this issue, but the UK still relies heavily on voluntary regulatory bodies.

Resource Allocation

The total budget of the international Human Genome Project is predicted to be in the order of 2 billion pounds. Can our part of the budget which will be largely funded by the Medical Research Council be justified in the present climate?

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Biblical and Theological Reflections

What I now want to offer is not so much specific answers to some of these moral questions, but some broad theological parameters which should constitute the basis of an authentic Christian response. I'm also not going to address the wider issue of how a Christian response should be advocated in a pluralistic society; only to stress that Christians are being looked to for guidance. Prof. Robert Edwards, one of the gurus of reproductive technology, wrote this a few years ago: "I found only confusion...indecision...changing ideas and concepts, when I sought inspiration, advice, and leadership" from religious sources. (6) My own interest in this area began, not as an academic exercise, but in response to perplexing questions in pastoral ministry.

Stewardship - playing God or serving God?

Part of the creation mandate, and part of what it means to be made in the Image of God is to be caretakers of God's estate, the world. "We are to subdue it and rule over it" (Gen.1:28). Donald Mackay, in his "Human Science and Human Dignity" (7) urges us not to so defend a contentment with the unalterable that we forget the sin of complacency in the face of the alterable. He quotes the proverb of Jesus, "He that knoweth to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin." In other words, to run away from all that genetic technology holds out, can be as much a denial of our human responsibility and dignity, as is an arrogant usurping of the limitations of stewardship.

It can be a false humility to throw in our hands in holy horror and say "Don't play God", when it is actually part of a God-ordained stewardship. True science is a religious function. Tom Torrance, the Scottish theologian calls the scientist "the priest of nature"; we are co-workers with God in nature. Genetic engineering, within proper limits, is not playing God, but serving Him. As Christians, we need to affirm much that is good in this revolution.

But "within proper limits" reminds us that Christian stewardship is not only about responsibility, but also about accountability and answerability. There are clear limits to man's dominion; our authority is a delegated one. Thus, in what we do, we are answerable to GOD, and part of that (as a sign and symbol of that) we are answerable to each other. Mackay warns his scientific colleagues "if the thought of being answerable should ever begin to irk us, we have gone beyond our brief!"

Anyone in the field of genetic biotechnology knows the lure of commercial interest, the personal fascination of exploring "beyond the boundaries", of wanting personal prestige under the guise of human compassion and scientific progress.

But it's not just the scientist and technician who is answerable, but the client as well; we all are. As Oliver O'Donovan reminds us, "Pioneers of research are simply giving authentic expression to our societies' soul, and we cannot be permitted to disown them". (8) This is well illustrated in March 1994's edition of the "Journal of Medical Ethics" where a survey is reported about women's attitude to foetal tissue research. An overwhelming 94% was in favour of using foetal material for any form of research. In other words, it is not just the geneticist, but all of us, who need to develop an "ethic of genetic duty". One example of this, for example, (unpopular though it may be) could be to advocate voluntary childlessness in high risk couples, as a viable Christian option, just as celibacy, in the Christian tradition, has been a legitimate Christian option.

The 'Givenness' of Creation

Here life gets more interesting! I want to return to Donald Mackay's distinguishing between "contentment with the unalterable" and "complacency in the face of the alterable". The issue, of course, is that in genetic engineering more and more is becoming alterable, raising a more fundamental question "Does the possible mean permissible?". "I can, therefore I ought" can so easily become the maxim of the modern technologist. Nearly 30 years ago, President John Kennedy is reported to have said "If someone asks us why we want to go to the moon, we have the answer ready; because we can. No other answer is necessary". (9)

This obviously needs to be challenged; and one challenge is to ask whether there is a certain givenness to creation. Is there a point when a legitimate taming of God's world becomes an illegitimate tampering with it?

Two issues seem to me to be important here.

One is to ask how static or dynamic should be our view of creation. Are we to say that God created the world in this way, and in this way it must remain; or are we not only stewards of God's world in this way, but, in a sense, to use a term increasingly employed, co-creators with God? So, for example, Bernhard Haring, the Roman Catholic ethicist, in his book "Manipulation" (10) talks about our biological nature being entrusted to us, so we can accelerate hominisation by genetic means.

The second issue is to ask if there is a moral content to the created order. One of the classic questions of moral philosophy, following Hume and others, is to ask whether, in any sense, we can read off the ought from the is. So, for example, in the natural law tradition, so strongly mediated through Aquinas, humankind observes its own nature, and is thus able "to discern the pattern and conduct by which its true end will be attained". This all assumes a givenness of moral order to the natural world. It is recognised that one of the massive effects of the Enlightenment was a dramatic uncoupling of the ought from the is.

The Christian view is that the created order does have moral content. The creation accounts in Genesis are not so much about how the world came about, but addresses the question of the meaning of the created order. Creation is the triumph of order over chaos. Even though the cosmos has suffered the effects of the Fall, as God's world, the cosmos still has a contingent rationality to it; and a moral symmetry to it; the theological ground of which is Jesus Christ, the WORD of GOD, though whom and for whom all things were made.

This leads me to say that, in particular, the nature and constitution of humanity is fixed. The Incarnation is God's certificate of approval, as it were, of human nature. In becoming man, God is affirming human nature, and this was reaffirmed at the resurrection. Indeed as Oliver O'Donovan argues, it is God's "Yes" to the moral order of all of creation. (11)

But does this high-sounding theology have any meaning and relevance in purely biological terms? Eric Mascall, in his Bampton Lectures, makes this striking statement "Christianity does not believe that God became man simply in order to bring human history to a full-stop and to reduce man to the status of a divinely certified fossil. The Incarnation did not only set upon man the seal by which God guarantees man's imperishable importance and inalienable dignity, it brought into the world a new thing, and inaugurated a new era of human dignity". (12) In spite of that quotation, I do believe the Incarnation has immense relevance here; "The WORD made flesh" does define the omega point of our human constitution. It calls, I believe, for a careful distinction between remedying ailments within our genetic inheritance and any genetic enhancement which makes fundamental changes to the human species. With this in mind, it seems, for example, that germ-line gene therapy is clearly a 'no-go' area.

Personhood

Here we come to a huge subject all on its own. One that I have a particular interest in, but I offer you just the barest of observations.

First, this is an immensely critical issue. Of course, for those with a strong utilitarian viewpoint, this issue is deemed subservient to the birth of healthy children. So Robert Edwards again, typical of so many, "The most important ethical point is to avert the birth of a severely handicapped baby, and this, to my mind, far outweighs the ethical disadvantages of disregarding a cleaving embryo or blastocyst". (13) But in my view the question simply cannot be ignored; when does human personhood begin?

Broadly speaking, there are 3 main views. The most prevalent is the gradualist approach, where it is maintained there is no one logical point from fertilisation to birth where a line can authoritatively be drawn. Rather, as development takes place and the foetus becomes increasingly differentiated, the foetus has, correspondingly, more claim to protection. The second view is that there is a decisive stage where human personhood begins. Some see this at conception, some at implantation or individuation (in the case of twinning), some link it with brain development. The third view is the importance of potential. A decision may not be possible as to when a person comes into being but, because each embryo has the potential to become a person, it is wrong to destroy it.

My second brief comment is: the Christian tradition has a huge amount to offer in this debate. The 'cradle' where a philosophy of personhood was first formed was the Early Church's grappling with God being one substance and yet three persons, and Jesus Christ having two natures but in one person. What was very clearly understood was that personhood is not merely to be defined by a list of characteristics or abilities. A human embryo may not be rational or sentient - but personhood goes deeper than this. Being has priority over behaving. Equally, what the Early Church saw (and today is being recaptured), is that persons are largely shaped and defined by relationships. In the Godhead Three divine persons are in a community of being. Thus, Christians assert that the ultimate ground of our personhood is God's relationship to us, and Psalm 139 implies that this goes back to our earliest embryonic beginnings.

With this in mind, and putting it alongside Kant's practical imperative that we must "always treat individuals as ends in themselves and never as means to an end", I have deep hesitation about any IVF which discards spare embryos, and all non-therapeutic experimentation on human embryos.

Human Dignity

We have already argued that genetic engineering, at its best, has an honourable part to play in the healing function of science. Both the quest of genetics and the results of genetics can affirm human dignity.

But, equally, in seeking to defend human dignity, genetics must be very careful not to diminish it.

First, we must strenuously resist the technologists' temptation to reduce human conception to the level of manufacture. It is all too easy for an IVF child to somehow appear not as a lovely gift from marital union, but the product of someones making. Here we do well to remind ourselves of Jacques Ellul's thesis that a "technological culture" is not primarily what a culture does, but how it thinks. (14) Here is something I particularly wish to underline. So often, the moral questions of genetics are posed in very specific ways: "What are the rights and wrongs of donated ovarian foetal tissue, the rights and wrongs of genetic selection or gene therapy?" But these questions must always be looked at in the widest possible context. What is all this doing to human dignity? What are we doing in allowing consumerist attitudes to colour our view of each other?

Second, we must always keep in mind that we are more than biological beings. Leon Kass, an American Christian bio-ethicist writes, "It is probably as indisputable as it is ignored that the world suffers more from the morally and spiritually defective than from the genetically defective". (15) And a quotation from the Christian Medical Fellowship's submission to the BMA working party on Genetic Engineering (Jan. 1990), "No amount of favourable genetic manipulation can improve morality or delete self-centredness". (16)

Third, and finally, in a quest for human freedom, genetics must be very careful not to lead us into a new slavery. Is it not true that genetic screening can lead to agonising choices some of us would rather not make? What are we sowing for future generations whose individuals discover that their biological father was deceased, or their mother was foetal tissue? May not germ-line therapy consign us to more that we bargained for? And who will increasingly be in control?

I end with a quotation from one of the most trenchant essays on this theme, C.S.Lewis' "The Abolition of Man":

"All long-term exercises of power, especially in breeding, must mean the power of earlier generations over later ones... Each new power won by man is also a power over man. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car". (17)

Let's take heed of Lewis' warning so that the beginnings of new and exciting conquests in genetics don't also become the beginnings of the abolition of humanity.

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Questions

Q: Can you distinguish between therapeutic and non-therapeutic experimentation?

A: Andrew : In the terms that I was using I would argue that, if we are talking about the early embryo, all experimentation implies that embryos have to be destroyed. So this is non-therapeutic experimentation. Indeed, the Warnock Report decrees that after experimentation those embryos must be destroyed. My own strong pro-life views on the state of the human embryo lead me to make that distinction.

Q: In that last bit about breeding systems, what is the place of historical genetic breeding to create breeds of animals like poodles and modern genetic engineering to produce an animal that is a cross between two species?

A: Andrew : My own view is that transgenic species of animals raise certain questions, and the patenting of them raises even more questions. I think most of us in this room would agree that there is a unique dignity for humanity, and it is in that particular respect that I was wanting to raise cautionary comments.

To comment on the Incarnation: It would be interesting to know what people made of what I was trying to say. I actually think, theologically, that the Incarnation has something very important to say. How far the implications of the Incarnation can be applied to a biological view of humanity is an important question.

Q: How do we explain how we view Jesus to others when discussing this issue?

A: Andrew : For the Christian community, as part of contemporary society, we must seek to come to a Godly mind over these complex issues in our lives. There is a much wider issue about the advocacy of a specific Christian ethic in a pluralistic society. I think those two are not necessarily contradictory, but complementary, because I believe what is good for the Christian is good for humanity. If I was speaking to a non-Christian audience, I wouldn't be using these theological categories to argue the case, though I believe they have important things to say to us.

Comment : I am not a Christian but I understand what you are saying.

Q: Where do you think the current climate is taking us? Are we on the edge of a precipice or the beginning of one?

A: Andrew : My fear is that Christians can always be very negative and slightly scare mongering about things. I think there are a lot of good things that are going on, but in amongst them there are some huge and important questions that worry me a great deal. I think gene therapy is very much going to be on the scene. The Human Genome Project is a massive undertaking that is going to have great implications. The whole area of production of material through genetic engineering is going to revolutionise some aspects of medicine to the good. So there's good and bad there, and I think that's where we need to be very careful what we say.

A: Audrey Elkington : I think I would agree with you on that. I don't think we are on the edge of a precipice. What is going to be important is that people can make decisions about things before they have already happened. I think to be able to do that it's important that people are educated so that it's not just the scientists who are making the decisions. Therefore evenings like tonight are really useful so that people can understand what's going on and can become part of the decision-making process.

Q: You used the word germ-line therapy. Can you talk more about that. Even if we do solve congenital disease by gene therapy, might we also be doing other things that we don't know the result of? Might there be some side effects we don't understand?

A: Andrew : There is great hesitation in the whole scientific community about germ-line gene therapy because by the very nature of it, in a sense it is going to be an irretrievable step. It is so important that we get it right because it's actually built into the whole generational thing. As I understand it from veterinary reproductive physiology, veterinary reproductive physiologists would say there are particular problems anyway with germ-line therapy and all sorts of unusual things can crop up that they had not expected. As far as I read the literature, there is great hesitation on everybody's part about germ-line gene therapy.

A: Audrey : I think the one thing that would push people in favour of germ-line gene therapy is the fact that the more we practise somatic cell therapy, the more we are actually going to increase diseased genes in our gene pool. People who are born having inherited diseased genes, but who have their condition 'cured' with somatic cell therapy, are then going to be able to live to reproduce and their children will inherit the diseased genes. So the more we use the safer somatic therapy, the more we are going to be having these diseased genes within our gene pool.

Q: Could you just explain that very simply?

A: Audrey : Somatic cells are the cells that are already differentiated - they are all the cells that make up the body except the ova or sperm which carry the genetic information to the next generation.

Q: Even simpler - if I can put it the way I understand it - if I had some genetic defect and I was treated with somatic therapy, my children would not be affected by the therapy but would inherit the genetic defect. Somatic therapy is where only my genes are altered. With germ-line therapy, my children's genes and their children's and so on are altered forever.

A: Andrew : Yes, that's right! But there is great hesitation about that. I also though take Audrey's point - there is an attraction to it.

Q: It is happening in plants and animals to some degree. There is an EC Directive that genes are themselves copyright, so there is the potential of copyright fees on producing and growing new plants.

A: Andrew : That's certainly one of the legal minefields that we're into. Of course one of the mixed blessings of this is the creation of high yield cereals, etc., through genetic engineering. It could immensely help the third world food problem. However, once you start getting into patents the danger is that the third world countries will be held at ransom, and they'd have to pay the fee in order to enjoy the benefits. One of the interesting things is the move to patent those genes you locate on human chromosomes in the Human Genome Project, so that different people in different countries will patent different parts of the human chromosome.

Q: I think we are on the edge of a precipice. I don't think it is scare mongering. I think this is generically different from previous advances. You think, going back to the history of the British tradition of making advances, that this is going to be same as one of those. No, it is not the same. I think it is the same order of distinction as that between conventional warfare and nuclear warfare. I think that it is partly because of the enormity of it that we can't get hold of it - in the same way we can't get hold of nuclear warfare.

Those of you who are acutely aware of the issues and technologically involved are very concerned for the rights and wrongs, but you're not the people who are going to decide. I mean there are market forces out there who will decide. There's the media, and the possible will become the permissible. I was on the Social Responsibility Board of the Synod with O'Donovan at the time of the Warnock Report. He and I took the same line. Sadly, I may say, other people had a different theological position. It seemed to me, there, that almost what was happening was, what is possible is permissible. They try to give theological reasons to justify that which is possible. You could always have a genuine story that would justify almost anything, and this is why I am very concerned.

With the kind of moral confusion we've got at the moment in our culture, there's no benchmark where you can make any decisions at all. Yes, we have to make decisions, but what about the average girl that's going to get genetic screening from Tyneside clinic? They are not going to be sitting down in a meeting like this. The doctors here know this - it's very difficult because of the complexity of the problem - we find it hard to grasp and get our minds round it. That's why I honestly think we are on the edge of a precipice, because everybody else is expecting someone else to come up with the answers.

For that reason I agree with what was said. We must have a kind of spiritual revival and get back to a simple faith in Jesus Christ - God and man. Really the question basically is - what is human? It can only be defined if we have some benchmark based on a Christian tradition. Jesus defines humanity, and if we haven't got some benchmark, how can we come to any conclusions? So I have to say I, for one, am worried. Everyone who is technically involved is often doing the thinking. We have to be positive as well as negative, but unless we get some overall spiritual revival we can't influence that thinking.

A: Andrew : I agree with you and I share your deep concern. What I was saying earlier was that if Christians appear to be negative about this whole area, people who want to listen will switch off. There are things to affirm that need to be affirmed, but there's a huge amount we're concerned about.

Q: If you feel we are on the edge of a precipice and that anything that's possible will ultimately be permissible, it is a great temptation to feel everything, all genetic experimentation, should be shut down. It's been quite heartening to see your positive thinking. I think a lot of people are very frightened and too negative. Good could spring from it - if anything can happen it will.

A: Andrew : Yes, I agree. We live in a day that is basically very utilitarian. When these issues are discussed in the media people talk a great deal about compassion and about the benefits, but the arguments are all of a consequential nature. What I've been trying to say is that there are a whole lot of categories that we, as Christians, want to introduce into the debate. We need in some way - among ourselves first and then in a wider context - to create an atmosphere where these wider parameters come into play too. Wider concepts, such as what do we really believe about personhood and human dignity, have to be established to answer these specific questions. When a presenter says to you, in very narrow specific terms, "What do you think about this?", it is difficult to say, "Hey, hang on a minute. That presupposes so many things. I am not very happy about that style of question.".

Q: Do you feel the same horror as when human bodies were first dissected or when the first blood transfusions were given - because it did cause a similar sort of horror.

A: Andrew : Well, that type of horror is what I wanted to caution against.

Q: Can there be any stronger affirmation of human dignity than that God Himself should come to this earth and die on a cross for us?

A: Andrew : I would say not.

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Glossary of Terms

Base
A building block of DNA. Four bases are used in different orders to form amino acids which code information on genes.

Base pair sequences
The combinations of bases found in the DNA.

Blastocyst
The ball of dividing cells at the very earliest stages after fertilisation.

Chromosomes
Strings of genes which are contained in the nucleus of every cell.

Cloning
Copying of a group of cells so that the resultant cells are genetically identical to the original group.

Conception
The moment when the ovum is fertilised by the sperm.

Congenital
A condition which is present as a result of information carried by the genes

Differentiated cells
See somatic cells.

Differentiation
The process where the cells within the developing organism take on their identity needed for future functions within the body.

DNA
Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid is a protein structure formed from sequences of bases. It is found within the cell and encodes genetic information, i.e. genes are made from DNA.

Embryo
The term which refers to the beginnings of a baby for the first eight weeks after conception.

Foetus
The term which refers to a baby after the eight week stage of development. This term is used only when referring to human babies.

Gamete
A sperm or an egg cell which is used in the process of reproduction. Gametes contain half the complete set of chromosomes (i.e. 46 becomes 23 in gametes) so that a complete set is produced after the gametes meet at fertilisation.

Gene
A string of bases which contain the information required by the body to carry out a certain function.

Gene pool
The total number of all the genes, including all the possible variations of these genes which are present within a population.

Gene Therapy
A process whereby diseases are cured (or symptoms are reduced) by locating genes associated with that disease and changing them in some way.

Germ line cells
These cells are specialised to produce gametes. The characteristics of these cells will therefore be inherited by future generations.

Germ line therapy
This is where the cells which are involved in reproduction - the germ line cells - are altered to induce some characteristic in all future generations.

Hominisation
To become more human; to take on more human characteristics.

Human Genome Project
An international project which aims to locate and identify the function of human genes by decoding the base pair sequences in the DNA. It is largely funded in this country by the Medical Research Council.

Implantation

When the fertilised ovum implants into the uterus (womb) wall of the mother.

Individuation
When the cells within the embryo begin to take on the identity for their respective 'jobs' within the body, i.e. the process of differentiation begins.

In vitro
A process which takes place in the laboratory, i.e. outside the living organism.

IVF
In Vitro Fertilisation : Fertilisation of ova in a flask or test tube.

Oocytes
Ova which are not yet fully developed and are still in the ovary.

Ova (eggs)
The female gametes. Ovum is the singular.

Somatic (Body/Differentiated) cells
Cells which are used by the body for a specific function, but do not give rise to sperm or ova. A genetically altered somatic cell will therefore not pass on its new characteristics to future generations.

Somatic cell therapy
Where normal body cells are treated to remove a genetic defect without causing the same changes to occur in future generations.

Stock breeding (positive genetic selection)
The selection of gametes or the choice of IVF produced embryos which enables desirable characteristics to result in future generations.

Stock weeding (negative genetic selection)
The process of genetic selection where undesirable characteristics can be identified, thus enabling embryos to be aborted. The undesirable characteristic is therefore reduced in the next generation. E.g. Screening for haemophilia or spina bifoda.

Totipotent cell
A cell taken from the blastocyst which is still capable of acting as a separate embryo, i.e. a cell which has not begun to differentiate.

Trans-genic
An organism which contains genetic information from more than one species.

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References

(1) Dixon, P. The Genetic Revolution, Kingsway, 1993, Chapter 6.
(2) Jones, Gareth G. Brave New People, IVP, 1984, p.12.
(3) O'Donovan, Oliver Begotten or Made, OUP, 1984, p.8.
(4)Pugh, Edwin Screening for Spina Bifida in Ethics and Medicine, 1985 1:4. p.57.
(5) The Times 20th July 1984.
(6) The Times 2nd August 1984.
(7) Mackay, Donald Human Science and Human Dignity, Hodder & Stoughton, 1979 p.58.
(8) O'Donovan, Oliver op. cit. p.9.
(9) Quoted by Arendt, Rev. R. in The ambiguity of progress and medical ethics in Ethics & Medicine, 1987 3:3 p.49.
(10) Haring, Bernhard Manipulation, St Pauls, Slough, 1975.
(11) O'Donovan, Oliver The Resurrection and the Moral Order, IVP. 1986.
(12) Mascall, Eric L. Christian Theology & Natural Science, The Bampton Lectures 1956. Archan Books, p.314.
(13) Edwards, R. Ethics and Embryology: the case for experimentation in Ch.3- Experiments on Embryos, Ed. Dyson, A. & Harris, J., Routledge, 1990,p.48.
(14) Ellul, Jacques The Technological Society, Jonathan Cape. Kingsway, 1993, p.65.
(15) Kass, Leon quoted in Jones, Gareth op. cit., p.
(16) Quoted in Dixon, Patrick The Genetic Revolution, Kingsway 1992 p.192.
(17) Lewis C.S., The Abolition of Man. Collins Fount Paperbacks Edition 1978, p.36.

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