What will be the greatest moral challenge facing our society throughout this century?

Are we ready to face it?

Editors Charles W. Colson and Nigel M. de S. Cameron, along with a panel of expert contributors, make the case in this book that the greatest watershed debates of the twenty-first century concerning ethics and public policy will surround the issue of biotechnology. In twelve essays they address several of the legal and ethical challenges before us: embryo research, stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, pharmacogenomics, cybernetics, nanotechnology and, of course, abortion.

Contributors include

• William L. Saunders, J. D., Family Research Council

• Christopher Hook, M.D., The Mayo Clinic

• Henk Jochemsen, Ph.D., Free University of Amsterdam

• David A. Prentice, Ph.D., Indiana State University

• Nathan A. Adams IV, Ph.D., J.D., Christian Legal Society

• David Stevens, M.D., Christian Medical Association

• Paige Comstock Cunningham, J. D., Americans United for Life

• C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

• Richard Doerflinger, M.A., Secretariat for Pro-life, National Conference of Catholic Bishops

• Wesley J. Smith, J.D., International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assistend Suicide

Leaders in their fields, these contributors point out the crucial role Christians can and should play in the public square. The well-informed and forward-looking perspectives they present will help us prepare for the challenges ahead.

From Publishers Weekly

This essay collection provides a worthwhile, if somewhat uneven, selection of conservative Christian thought about biotechnology and its ethical and legal implications. Colson and Cameron assemble a reliable team of contributors, weighted more towards organizational leaders and lobbyists than academics. In general, subtlety is not a strong point here. Colson characterizes therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells as "high-tech cannibalism," a practice that "will lead inevitably to the abolition of humankind and the ultimate end of Western civilization as we know it." Yet some other contributors (including Paige Comstock Cunningham, a former president of Americans United for Life) reach out to a wider audience, recognizing that on issues of cloning and genetic engineering, pro-life conservatives may find unexpected allies among pro-choice advocates and Greens, who share their suspicions of eugenics and biotech capitalism. Other highlights include David Prentice's calculations of the feasibility of "therapeutic" cloning for major diseases such as diabetes and Christopher Hook's discussion of "transhumanism," using cybernetics and nanotechnology to enhance human potential. Overall, the volume cannot quite deliver on the promise of its subtitle: there is not enough of a coherent theological framework here to constitute a Christian vision for public policy. But there are certainly some promising suggestions for Christian public advocacy.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Author

"Just as most Christians were asleep thirty years ago when Roe v. Wade was decided and abortion on demand became legal, we are again in danger of sleeping through another moral catastrophe. With the latest advances in biotechnology, not only are we taking upon ourselves the god-like prerogative of ending human life as we choose (as we have done with abortion and euthanasia), but we are attempting to appropriate the god-like prerogative of making human life as we choose. The most profound question we are being asked today is which is the more grievous sin against God—to take life created in his image or to make life created in man’s image?"

—Charles W. Colson, Co-Editor, "Human Dignity in the Biotech Century"