One of Europe’s leading neonatologists, Professor John Wyatt, has urged Christians to vigilantly challenge science on important ethical issues.
The Professor of Ethics & Perinatology at UCL insists that Christians should assist in ensuring that science and technology are used in ways that truly benefit people, and don’t just offer quick fixes.
In a speech sponsored by CARE this week, Professor Wyatt said science is on the verge of doing previously unthinkable things, such as providing ‘cures’ for ageing, drugs to suppress unpleasant memories, and all sorts of ‘human enhancements’ that need more careful thought before implementation.
The Professor insisted that if ethical lines are blurred then the “potential for evil is obvious.” He cited trends such as the selective killing of female foetuses and infants in parts of the world, and ‘reproductive tourism’, by which wealthy women use the poor as surrogate mothers, a practice he described as “rent a womb”.
“Whenever you hear people talking about the control of nature just beware of it turning out to be the strong abusing the weak,” said Wyatt.
The Professor cited the change in the debate around euthanasia and assisted suicide as a case in point, arguing that the human body is being increasingly seen as nothing more than a machine, and so euthanasia is adopted as the answer to a “body that is a failed machine”.
“When this was being debated 15 years ago, the arguments were about pain and diseases like cancer. Now the arguments are not about pain but about control and autonomy,” he said.
“[It is] machine thinking coupled with the centrality of autonomy.”
“We need to look for creation order and we especially need to look for the moral order because God has not just created atoms - a physical reality - but God has created a moral order that penetrates through every aspect of reality,” added the Professor.
Professor Wyatt also said that Christians need to challenge “materialistic, impoverished and reductionist conceptions” of humanity and reveal their “hidden link” to contemporary social problems.
“The threat to human identity from biomedical technology is less obvious and more subtle than that which comes from obvious threats like terrorism or totalitarianism or global warming but I believe it is more dangerous because it strikes at the heart of what it means to be human.
“With the façade of doing good, it is much more dangerous.”