Bioethics: A Primer for Christians

Meilander explores from a Christian standpoint questions related to such issues as assisted reproduction, abortion, gene therapy, prenatal screening, euthanasia, organ donation and other bioethical matters.

Writing as a Christian for Christians, Meilaender (religion, Oberlin Coll.) ponders the ramifications of contemporary biotechnology. He offers "reasons of concern" rather than a full-blown attack, based on the Christian conception of the human being and the traditional respect for the body. He seeks to examine the implications of different technologies and capabilities of the medical profession that raise, for him, grave questions. While directed to Christians, the points he raises have a wider validity, and his style is pleasing and generally accessible. In reflections tinged with a traditional Judeo-Chistian viewpoint, Fiedler (English, SUNY-Buffalo) writes more as a humanist. The author of over 20 books of essays in the humanities, he rebels against the demystification and desacralization that has governed medical sciences. In his idiosyncratic style, which will not appeal to all, Fiedler berates the prejudice against the disabled and those not seen as normal and abhors euphemisms such as "nonviable terata," said of infants so malformed they are unlikely to survive. In essays addressed mostly to specialists, Fiedler ponders such points as why organ transplant programs do not succeed, the image of the doctor and the nurse in literature and popular culture, the obsession with "normal" children, and the abnormal fear of abnormality. Both authors ponder the mystery of human life; both have a healthy respect for science but also a healthy disdain for technology as an end in itself. Theirs are clarion calls for a more circumspect examination of current medical procedures that allow us to prolong life, end the life of the unwanted, and cure the problems of those who are not "normal." For pertinent collections.?Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, N.J.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Meilaender comes to the point early: "I have tried to say what we Christians ought to say in order to be faithful to the truth that has claimed us in Jesus." The permission of the law, he asserts, does not supersede Christian teachings, which he sees requiring that abortion be countenanced only to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest, that genetic engineering be tried on somatic but not germ cells, that medical treatment be refused only if useless or excessively burdensome, and that death never be induced by painkillers or disconnecting feeding tubes. Living wills are not acceptable, he says, although health care powers of attorney are, and if the family disapproves of a member's desire to donate organs, its wishes must prevail. Meilaender gives his reasoning, carefully worked out from Christian writings, for each of these major conclusions. Some Christians may demur, especially from his regard for suffering as part of God's unchallengeable design, but, concise and definite, his primer does its duty well. William Beatty