Canada's test of faith
This country must soon decide how to walk the line between doing God's Work and playing God

By PRESTON MANNING
Friday, April 5, 2002 - Page A15
Globe and Mail

Some time soon, Health Minister Anne McLellan will introduce a bill to regulate assisted human reproduction and related science. The regulatory body to be created by this statute will likely become the principal regulator of "the genetic revolution" in Canada -- a revolution created by breakthroughs in the life sciences, with enormous potential for both good and harm.

I was a member of the standing committee on health that reviewed an earlier draft of this legislation. In presenting it, Allan Rock (then health minister) recognized the potential conflict between what was Scientifically possible and ethically acceptable, saying: "There must be a higher notion than science alone . . . that can guide scientific research and endeavour. Simply because we can do something does not mean that we should do it."

But what might that "higher notion" be?

One of the candidates is "faith" -- religious faith; faith in the existence of God; faith that the universe, including human life and the genome, is His handiwork; faith that we are somehow made in His image and subject to His providential care; and faith that there are universal and transcendent moral principles that ought to govern us in addition to the principles of physics, chemistry and biology to which we are all subject.

The pollsters tell us that although only a minority of our political, media, and scientific elites share this "faith perspective," more than 65 per cent of Canadians share various elements of it.

The health committee recommended to the minister that, in addition to scientific and medical perspectives, the faith perspective should also be given "standing" before any tribunal charged with regulating the genetic revolution.

The "faith perspective" that I bring to this question is that of historic Christianity. But most of the points I want to raise will also resonate with those whose faith is rooted in other religious traditions. My starting point is to pose questions -- questions that occur to the person of faith when confronted with the potential benefits and risks of the genetic revolution.

First, relationships: My faith tells me that our relationships -- with each other and with God -- are the most important dimension of life, and that love is the supreme ethic that ought to govern those relationships. What does the genetic revolution do to our relationships? To the extent that it helps infertile couples to have children or prevents parents from passing on inheritable diseases to their children, surely it is to be supported and encouraged. But if it encourages man to play God or reduces human reproduction to a technological process to be carried out in a laboratory or a factory -- surely those dimensions of the genetic revolution should be constrained.

If you are a child of the 21st century, with five names on your birth certificate -- those of the sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate mother, adoptive mother and adoptive father -- can love still be at the centre of that network of relationships? And, if not, what ethic will govern those relationships?

Second, the moral obligation to respect life: My faith teaches me that life is precious, not just for its own sake, but because it originates from God.

More and more Canadians of all persuasions are acknowledging our need to be more respectful of life -- all life. There is growing acceptance of an "environmental ethic" that insists that we protect plants, trees and animals from destruction and extinction. But what about greater respect for human life, dignity and personhood? Particularly as science pushes
back the definitions of when life and the distinguishing characteristics of personhood begin -- from the newborn, to the fetus, to the embryo, to the pre-embryonic.

To the extent that the genetic revolution is respectful of life and increases our understanding of its preciousness, it will be a great boon to humanity. But to the extent that it reduces our conception of life to the mere product of some biochemical reaction, it needs to be constrained and redirected.

Will legislative efforts to regulate assisted human reproduction and related science reopen and inflame the old pro-life, pro-choice controversy over abortion? I am hopeful that the genetic revolution will put that conflict into a new context more conducive to resolution.

Over the past 20 years, the pro-choice movement has promoted women's reproductive rights to the point where they are now well established in law and practice. At the same time, responsible pro-life advocates urge a parallel development of legal protection for the unborn -- in particular, for human fetuses and embryos -- and this new law about to be brought forward by the government will take several steps down that road.

Then the issue will become, what to do when the legal rights of the unborn and the mother conflict? This is the issue that legislators and the courts should have been wrestling with all along, instead of avoiding it by embracing the now unscientific legal fiction that human personhood does not begin until birth. Parliament might well decide that where there is such a conflict, the rights of the mother should prevail, which in effect is the current state of the law. Or Parliament might at least start to address possible exceptions, as when the activities of
the mother (drug abuse or excessive alcohol consumption, for example) predestine the child to death or crippling disabilities.

Third, the moral obligation to heal: The Christian faith has long taught that we have a moral obligation to heal and care for the sick. I have been greatly encouraged by the numbers of scientists and medical people I have met in Canada's hospitals and laboratories who are deeply committed to this objective.

Of course, there are other motivations -- scientific curiosity, profit, competitiveness -- for participating in the genetic revolution. But to the extent that our scientists and medical people are motivated by a moral obligation to heal, surely they deserve our wholehearted encouragement and support.

This, of course, brings us to a cruel dilemma.

What do we do when the moral obligation to respect life and the moral obligation to heal conflict? For example, when our scientists seek permission to destroy human embryos in order to obtain embryonic stem cells that may be used to treat juvenile diabetes or some other degenerative disease.

Are there limits to our moral obligation to respect life? Are there limits to our moral obligation to heal? Are there any circumstances where it is morally justifiable to take life in order to save life? Are there other options -- such as focusing on adult stem cell research -- that may help us to avoid choosing between the lesser of two evils?

My own faith perspective tells me that we should not destroy life to save life -- even at the embryonic level -- and should increase our efforts to find better ways to achieve the objective of saving life.

Fourth, the search for universal and transcendent moral principles to guide the genetic revolution: This is the "higher notion" of which the former health minister spoke.

Do such principles exist?

People of faith believe they do, even though we may disagree on what they are, and all of us "see as through a glass darkly" when it comes to understanding them. What this means is that we must rededicate ourselves to the search for such principles, rather than abandoning it and settling for some inconclusive moral relativism that says, "You believe what you
believe, and I'll believe what I believe, and somehow everything will work out."

Five thousand years ago, a man of faith came down from a mountain with two tablets of stone in his hands. Written on those tablets was a code -- a code for governing human life at the individual and societal level by honouring the source of life and prohibiting activities that diminish or destroy life.

In our day, men and women of science have also come down from the mountain with a code in their hands -- a code written not on tablets of stone but in strands of DNA woven into double helixes. It, too, is a code for governing human life -- at the most elemental level.

People of faith believe that the author of these two codes is one and the same, and that each sheds light on the other. The regulatory regime to be established by Canada's new legislation will serve us well if it brings both science and faith to bear on the governance of the genetic revolution.

Preston Manning was a founding member of the Reform Party and a former leader of the opposition.