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Christian Ethics and the New Eugenics

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Christian Ethics and the New Eugenics Christian Ethics and the New Eugenics Philip Anderson Lorish Charlottesville, Virginia B.A., Furman University, 2003 M.A., University of Virginia, 2008 M.Phil., University of Oxford, 2010 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia May 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction, 1 Part I 1. Conceiving Children: Exploring Our Reproductive Social Imaginary, 14. On Social Imaginaries The Disaggregation Thesis The Economics of Reproduction Children as Objects of Desire Reproduction and the Turn to Genetics Conclusion, Or, What Does it All Amount To? 2. Liberal Eugenics: The Proposals, 54. Vintage Eugenics: The American Eugenics Program Reproductive Autonomy: The Point of Broad Agreement Rights and Obligations: The Emergent Moral Background Liberal Eugenics: A Continuum of Urgency Conclusion, Or, What Does it All Amount To? Part II Introduction, 99. 3. The Ethics of Act-Analysis, 109. On Sin and Guilt, or, “Where did Christian Ethics come from?” Sex and Reproduction: The Official Position The New Natural Law On Goods and the Good: Two Hesitations Conclusion, Or, What Does it All Amount To? 4. The Ethics of Embrace, 152. Unusual Encounters Disability and the “Standard Account of Morality” The Church as Ethic Modernity and its Discontents Possible Allies Conclusion, Or, What Does it All Amount To? i 5. Theology and Counsel, 200. Theoreticians of the Church: Oliver O’Donovan and Paul Ramsey What is Counsel? The Need for Judgment Counsel Enacted: Seeing in a Glass Dimly Coming to Judgment: On Fabricating Man Conclusion, Or, What Does it All Amount To? Conclusion, 249. On Being Awake Waking to Our Power Acknowledgments, 260. Works Cited and Consulted, 262. ii Introduction iii This project is concerned with the relation between Christian ethics and what has come to be called “liberal” or the “new” eugenics, shorthand for a cluster of developments in reproductive medicine utilized for the creation of idealized human persons. Mine is perhaps a foolish enterprise. In what follows, I do not presume that the meaning of either of these terms - Christian ethics or liberal eugenics - is immediately unambiguous to all, much less that we understand their relation to one another. As such, the two primary objectives of the project are clarification and analysis: What is meant by the term liberal eugenics, and how does liberal eugenics relate to the various streams of thought that constitute the field of Christian ethics? For important reasons, each aspect of this question requires some acts of synthesis on my part. It is so because there is, in my view, no liberal eugenics or Christian ethics in some pristine natural state, ready and waiting to be found by the curious mind.1 Rather, there are thinkers whose thoughts run along certain lines, toward certain conclusions about the nature of reproduction, the moral meaning of human action in relation to new life, and so on; and it is my task to take what seems most important in each of these lines of thought and put them together in such a way as to clarify the meaning of the terms themselves. To admit that this requires synthesis on my part – maybe even a synthesis to which particular authors would object – is not, I hope, to admit that I am interested in creating a Christian ethics or liberal eugenics de novo, one that would be unrecognizable to Christian 1 On the term liberal eugenics, see Nicholas Agar, Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004). On the contested nature of Christian ethics (or Moral Theology) as a field of study, any number of theorists question the all-too-crisp definitions theologians employ and the typical manner in which they go about their work. For an interesting contemporary account of what Christian Ethics has often overlooked and its newfound interest in adequate moral description, see Michael Banner’s recently 1 ethicists or liberal eugenicists; it is, however, to frankly acknowledge that the argument I present on the relation of Christian ethicists to the proposals of liberal eugenics depends on a prior and essential act of moral description.2 But why is Christian ethics interested in this topic in the first place? And, perhaps more pertinently, why should bioethicists or, in fact, the general reading public care about what Christian ethicists have, can, and should say about developments within reproductive technology and its use? What, after all, do Christian ethicists contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the ways in which children are produced? Is it anything more than a series of more or less articulate roadblocks to progress?3 2 The work of adequate moral description requires patience. To do it well requires more than merely chronicling developments; we must also have some sense of the relation of parts to whole. This is all the more important in a world where each week, it seems, we are greeted with news reports of new technological developments that highlight the merging of increased knowledge and power. In fact, it is precisely this synthesis of knowledge and power that causes such alarm in some and promise in others. Whether it be the use of assisted reproductive technologies to address the conundrum of infertility, expanding coverage for genetic screening intended to identify embryos with genetic abnormalities, CRISPR technologies that promise a kind of “gene-editing,” Mitochondrial Replacement Therapies, or endorsing sex-selective abortion, the tools of medical innovation can, increasingly, be put to our ends; and, importantly, we desire these ends to be beneficial to parents, potential parents, and future generations but are, in most instances, ambivalent about such aspirations. 3 One take on this is that of Ronald Green, who clearly states that the reason to discuss the theological responses to new reprogenetic possibilities is simply (and only?) because the notion of “playing God,” though incoherent, has such purchase on the common imagination that it cannot be ignored. This concept – playing God – has such purchase due to the fact that, as many will know, the Madisonian compromise regarding religion in United States has led to the flourishing in of religion in America, not the inverse. For evidence of this, see Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation and Dynamic (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2008). Green’s solution to the problem of playing God, however, is to enact social change slowly and deliberately. In chapter 7 of his Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) we read: The disagreements about intervening at the genetic level will grow in intensity in the years ahead. During the twenty-first century human gene modification is likely 2 These questions are best answered indirectly: If Christian ethicists cannot muster the energy and ingenuity required to orient Christians (and possibly others) toward the good within a world of increased control over our reproductive capacities, then their effort has failed in its pastoral task and, as such, deserves the ridicule it so often receives. Though I do not think it deserves this ridicule, this is a matter that cannot be prejudged. Christian moral theologians have to make a case - a case that will make use of the best of the resources available to them in order to address all the complexities inherent in the liberal eugenicists’ proposal.4 Clarifying Concern Theorists of many kinds raise grave concerns as well as ambitious social proposals around developments in reproductive technology and their use, particularly as they relate to the prospects of “our post-human future.” Consider, for example, Francis Fukuyama’s concerns alongside the confidence of British bioethicist John Harris. First, Fukuyama: to move to the center of religious debates, possibly eclipsing the controversies about abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning. Beginning with more widespread prenatal gene selection and moving on to germline therapies and enhancements, each new manipulation will precipitate a skirmish in the war between differing worldviews. The passions are strong, and the outcome of debates probably depends on how well we implement the new technologies for choosing our genes. If we do so badly, gene modification will come under the shadow of the failed eugenics movement. If we implement it well, gene modification will become a routine and accepted part of our lives, joining anesthesia during childbirth, birth control, and in vitro fertilization on the list of reproductive technologies that religions once opposed. (196) 4 It is important to note that my decision not to give much attention to accounts like Joseph Fletcher’s The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Reproductive Roulette (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988) is intentional. Though Fletcher’s situationism will come up from time to time, my view is that Fletcher’s approach has not been adopted by the major figures who have shaped Christian ethics in the last 50 years. His work will be treated in the chapter on Oliver O’Donovan and Paul Ramsey, particularly as it relates to Ramsey’s desire for “decision-oriented” church teachings. 3 The political equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence rests on the empirical fact of natural human equality. We vary greatly as individuals and by culture, but we share a common humanity that allows every human being to potentially communicate with and enter into a moral relationship with every other human being on the planet. The ultimate question raised by biotechnology is, What will happen to political rights once we are able to, in effect, breed some people with saddles on their backs, and others with boots and spurs?5 And then Harris: In the future there will be no more human beings.
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