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The Methodist Church of Great Britain | Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering

A source for good or evil?
 

What is the Methodist Church's position?

The Methodist Church has supported the scientific judgement that remedies for human infertility, and for certain genetic diseases and handicaps, would be greatly assisted if research on embryos not required for artificial insemination continues to be carried out. However, research should be restricted to the first fourteen days; in addition, embryos should not be brought into being specifically for research purposes.

But can genetic engineering do any real good?

It seems that through the ‘engineering' or manipulation of the human genetic structure, there is a real hope of cure and relief for some very nasty and up till now incurable diseases and disabilities such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy.

What are the moral issues?

Many questions arise. Is the human race right to pursue knowledge to discover more about our genetic make-up with all the possibilities for good and evil that might raise? Are human beings seeking to meddle in an area where they have no right to be? Would it be morally right to interfere with genes so as to ‘improve' people, to make them more intelligent, or physically taller, or more ‘handsome'? Some politicians and social scientists have wanted to do this in the past, but the Churches have condemned the science of ‘eugenics', especially since the dreadful experiments conducted by Nazi scientists in the concentration camps of the Second World War.

Is this meddling with God's creation?

As with so many moral questions, the problem is to know where to draw the line. Jesus of Nazareth was a healer. He cured diseases, and showed that God's purposes include overcoming ‘those things in his creation that spoil it and that diminish the life of his children'. Clearly, where genetic manipulation is the means of healing diseases – in animals or humans – it is to be welcomed. But the dangers of it falling into the wrong hands and being used for evil ends are obvious.

How is the Methodist Church making its view heard?

The Methodist Church has supported the setting up of Ethics Committees and such bodies as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which supervise work in the genetic sciences in hospitals and laboratories to make sure that they truly serve the common good.

Resources

Sources: 'Human Genetic Engineering – Good or Evil?' by David Hardy (Methodist Publishing); ‘Whose Life Is It Anyway?' by Andrew Fox (Headway Lecture, 1998). Text reproduced with permission from "What the Churches say on moral and social issues" (Christian Education Movement).