蜜芽传媒

There was a remarkable medical advance reported this week. Scientists from Cambridge University sequenced the genetic codes of 100,000 volunteers suffering from cancer and other diseases. Doctors involved say this study will help them better understand these conditions and their causes, and lead to genome details being included in all our medical records, transforming healthcare.

But other scientists are going much, much further than this. Soon American biotechnology firms will be offering to screen the genomic code of IVF embryos before they are implanted in the womb. They can select the one they believe has the least risk of developing disease and other problems later in life. It鈥檚 entirely possible that even parents who can naturally conceive but are wealthy enough could choose to pay for IVF and this testing.

Some would say this is an appropriate thing to do. Parents are keen to avoid their future children suffering from illness and want science to help them make responsible decisions. Others are not so sure. In China, one geneticist claimed he has taken embryos gene-edited to protect against HIV, to full term, something that is illegal in the UK. It caused one shocked British scientist to ask what is our collective moral compass.

Christian ethicists suggest the place to start is the two pillars of Christian thought, love, and justice. In Psalm 139 there is a poetic account of the start of life, created by God. The psalmist said: 鈥淔or you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother鈥檚 womb. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret鈥�.

If doctors at the behest of parents take over that shaping and knitting together, is that baby in the making really loved for itself or only if it has modifications made to order?

Then there is justice. Christian thought emphasises the equality of all human beings, because they are all created by God. This makes them equally precious and with equal dignity. But for me justice would be compromised in a culture that had an enhanced class of persons, and an unenhanced one, the offspring of those not wealthy enough to pay for modifications. There have been similar concerns expressed by Christian ethicists about testing for chromosomal abnormalities such as Down鈥檚 and ultrasound that identifies foetuses with disabilities, if it leads to them being aborted. It might be an understandable reaction for distressed parents but again, what do all these decisions say about society? Could it be that we are paving the way for eugenics by the back door? These questions must surely not be overlooked amid the excitement of any breakthrough in biotechnology.

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