Biomedical Ethics for the Contemporary Church

The course will be held over two weekends in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Biomedical Ethical Challenges Facing the Contemporary Church

STM TEE module

We are living in a time of a tsunami of change. Christians are often swarmed by newer and latest technologies without having a chance to examine the ethical considerations. This course will help to surf this tsunami by evaluating from a pastoral-theological perspective, issues that will involve everyone at some time in their lives. These issues include abortion, mercy-killing, advance medical directives, test tube and designer babies, gene editing, stem cell therapies, cloning, reproductive issues, gene therapy, prenatal testing, chimera research, life enhancement, aesthetic surgery, organ transplant, and regenerative medicine. These challenges are affecting every Christian in one way or other.

This non-technical course is for pastors, church leaders, counsellors and church members who are interested in surfing.

Speaker

Dr Alex Tang is associate professor of paediatrics in Monash University and consultant paediatrician at KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital. He is an ordained Presbyterian elder and lectures at several seminaries. He has authored two books on biomedical ethics; A Good Day to Die on euthanasia or mercy killing and Live and Let Live on abortion, cloning and reproductive ethics and published numerous articles. For more information, visit his website at www.alextang.org

Presidential Report on Synthetic Biology

From the blog.bioethics.net

Paul Root Wolpe Discusses PCSBI Report on Syn Bio

The President's Commission on Bioethical Issues released the Executive Summary of its Report on the Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies. (To read the full report, click here.)

The Report suggests five ethical principles that should inform our ethical evaluation and oversight of emerging technologies, and then makes 18 recommendations for public policy around synthetic biology. While The Report specifies synthetic biology, it is clear that the recommendations could, and are meant to, apply to many other emerging biotechnologies as well.
The Report first rightly points out that, despite some of the media hype around the creation of an "artificial cell" by the Venter Institute last May, the cell did not "amount to creating life either as a scientific or a moral matter." The creation of a synthetic genome is a fine technological achievement, but it does not immediately require any change on our basic ethical oversight of biotechnology.
The five ethical principles articulated by The Report include (1) public beneficence, (2) responsible stewardship, (3) intellectual freedom and responsibility, (4) democratic deliberation, and (5) justice and fairness. These principles are used as categorical rubrics under which the 18 recommendations are described.

read more

Ted Peters on Synthetic Biology

Sze Zeng alerted me to this article by Ted Peters on synthetic biology. This is the first time I am aware of this Journal of Cosmology.

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Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 8, In Press.
JournalofCosmology.com, June, 2010

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Commentaries: Artificial Life

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Abstract

On May 20, 2010, famed geneticist Craig Venter and colleagues published a landmark study in the emerging field of 'synthetic biology', the creation of an artificial bacterium genome (copied from DNA sequences of Mycoplasma mycoides) which was transferred into a closely related microbe which began to successfully reproduce, making over a billion copies of itself.

Venter's achievement has drawn mostly enthusiastic praise, with some likening it to the 'splitting the atom' and deserving of the Nobel Prize. Yet others' warn of a 'Frankenstein monster' and 'genetic pollution'; fearing that artificial genes and artificial life may take over the world, and end life as we know it.

Scientists and bioethicists from around the world have been asked to comment and to explain. What is the real significance of this achievement, and is there any reason to feel fear?

read the whole article

HT: Sze Zeng

Presidential Commission on Synthetic Biology

There have been an significant two days meeting on synthetic biology in Washington D.C. that seem to have been missed by many. Summers Johnson of blog.bioethics.net blogs about it here and here. She notes

Perhaps the only real substantive ethics discussion came from AJOB Neuroscience's own Paul Wolpe who provided an overview on religious perspectives related to synthetic biology as well as four examples of synthetic biology.

Some of his statements were somewhat surprising. Wolpe stated that religious communities are relatively unconcerned about synthetic biology. I have no reason to doubt this claim, but it is certainly surprising.

I wonder why this curious silence from the religious communities.