Design and Destiny: Jewish and Christian Persepctives on Human Germline Modification. Edited by Ronald Cole‐Turner, Ethics and the New Genetics: An Integrated Approach. Edited by H. Daniel Monsour and Theology, Disability and the New Genetics. Edited by John Swinton, Brian Brock

Pp. 237 , Cambridge, MA , The MIT Press , 2008 , £14.95/$22.00. Pp. 198 , Toronto , University of Toronto Press , 2007 , $45.00. Pp. 251 , London , T&T Clark (Continuum) , 2007 , £22.99. New controversies on genetics and ethics seem to emerge almost on a daily basis. The public is properly mesmerized by the astounding breakthroughs in biotechnology that challnege society and religion alike. Fortunately, there is an abundance of excellent literature on ethics that tries to keep apace with the technological race that characterizes our time. This review considers three fine texts that address some of the crucial issues in biotechnology that will shape our culture, our lives, and our progeny. Professor Ronald Cole-Turner has edited a superb collection of essays in his recent book, Design and Destiny. Jewish and Christian Persepctives on Human Germline Modification. The study presents a perceptive rationale for religious discourse in the public domain to discuss ethical issues in biotechnology and human germline modification. The essays are written by some of the most prominent religious scholars from Jewish and Christian perspectives who seek to constructively influence public discourse and policy in this increasingly complex arena of human genetics. One of the thorniest problems that our global society will encounter, probably much sooner than often estimated, is that of modifying our offspring by genetic alteration of the germline. An extensive list of arguments can be marshalled to support or oppose the drive of science and technology in medical research from secular or philosophical standpoints. However, the editor shrewdly pilots the debate into what many perceive as the stormy waters of religious faith and denominational belief to highlight some strong currents and reliable winds that can navigate society, including its religious and secular sectors, into deeper waters of moral meaning with a robust vision for human life. The essays employ traditional religious insights to inform and enhance contemporary conversation among experts and the public about how we might ‘design’ our future progeny in a manner consistent with the ‘destiny’ of what human flourishing might entail, hence the imaginative title, ‘Design and Destiny’. The editor frames the collection in a clear and cogent manner. At the outset the debate on germline modification is helpfully situated within the larger context of explaining how religious discourse can have relevance for public debate and policy formation on emerging social issues around biotechnology. Appealing to religion is not intended primarily to offer innovative forms of persuasion that otherwise escape philosophy or secular discussion. Rather, religion is engaged to deepen the debate and enrich the discussion with renewed vigor and understanding in a continuing quest for wisdom and maturity. The hope is to nurture compassion and healing in a context that bypasses merely individual interests by embracing justice concerns of discrimination and unfairness across populations and cultures. This approach constitutes an impressive hermeneutic that seeks to interpret scientific reality in a social context to find interpersonal depth of meaning and to elicit shared ethical purpose in the face of the technological imperative. In the conclusion the various threads of discussion by the contributing authors are woven elegantly together into a large tapestry depicting the basic argument: that religious discourse can offer fascinating forms (though qualified and cautious) of support for human germline modification for therapeutic purposes, assuming several basic conditions are met. This occurs in a way that shifts the focus from technology to person in order to highlight the significance of human agency in reshaping human life. On the one hand, delineating a broad basis of approval among religions for germline modification contests a widespread but mistaken perception that religions tend to adopt a monolithic and neo-Luddite opposition to such technology. In contrast, the collection explains that Christian and Jewish traditions typically leave the door open to accepting human germline modification. On the other hand, the conditional nature of this apparently surprising support across a large spectrum of religious belief should not be under-estimated. One condition that is generally endorsed by the volume's contributors is the distinction between therapeutic and enhancement purposes. Yet this distinction is murky and difficult to draw with precision, but it can be interpreted as approving use of the technology to diminish the likelihood of serious genetic disease while proscribing use of the technology to produce a child with so-called socially desirable traits. Secular scholars typically engage discourse on this distinction through the lens of autonomy, competence, and informed consent. However, religious scholars tend to pursue a deeper framework by focusing upon the theological purpose of human life and the quest for human perfection. In doing so, they try to discern normative meaning in human relationships to one another and to God who is immersed in creation, incarnation, and renewal or redemption. Hence, the editor notes with perspicacity that the theological challenge is not really about distinguishing between therapy and enhancement but rather about establishing a religious vision of human flourishing. And central components in this dynamic vision are the related roles of personal intention, ethical purpose, and moral preparation for living with technologies that involve therapy and enhancement alike. If we are to grasp the significance of our moral preparedeness for germ line technology it can be helpful to recognize that the technology's onward progress appears to be both inevitable and incremental, even though some dramatic transitions indeed may occur suddenly. Hence, the study prudently explains that we ought to focus attention not merely on the emerging technology but upon the ongoing moral development of ourselves as creators and users of this technology. That is, we should ascertain what kind of persons we seek to become, with all of our vulnerabilities and temptations. We should embrace a hopeful quest for virtue that replaces the delusion of control with compassion and kindness in a spirit of social solidarity for an increasingly technologized humanity. In sum, this is an excellent study that insightfully enlightens the scholarly debate on germline modification and provides a superb resource for an extensive lay readership, both religious and secular, on this fascinating topic. In another edited collection, Ethics and the New Genetics, H. David Monsour focuses on the Roman Catholic tradition to discuss advances in human genetics by applying Bernard Lonergan's method of functional specialization. This work arises from a conference in 2002 and was completed long before the 2008 Vatican Instruction on genetics, Dignitas Personae. Nonetheless, the essays insightfully articulate similar foundational concerns in Roman Catholicism as enunciated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, especially on being attentive to theological anthropology and the meaning of the human condition. The collection arises from a think tank sponsored by the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute (founded in 2001) to nurture a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach that includes both research and communication among ethicists, geneticists, physicians, theologians, and lawyers. The adopted methodology refers to Lonergan's technique of functional specialization that seeks to engage the complex organizational and epistemological challenges of multidisciplinary investigation. Because this method entails reciprocal development of each contribution by engaging the others, the volume reads less like an edited collection of independent essays and more as a multi-author accomplishment arising from a cumulative critique throughout. As a result the authors provide a cogent and interesting analysis. The essays are divided into three clusters. The first section identifies bioethical issues in human genetics from a variety of empirical disciplines in the natural and human sciences, delineating competing stances that engage these issues. The items include technology and the therapuetic promise, clinical applications, providing health care, and commercialization in human genetics. The second section discusses relevant ethical questions by engaging the so-called pre-empirical components that underly competing stances in the debate, drawing from discourse in philosophy, religion, and especially Catholic theology. Here the ethical topics include the nature of moral value and knowledge, religion as providing a horizon of moral discernment, and specifically Catholic perspectives on ethics discourse. The final section focuses upon normative outcomes from the combination of the empirical and pre-empirical data. Here the integration of the previous discussions (hence the subtitle of the book) addresses who owns the human genome, the role of the human person from the Vatican's perspective, emerging issues on genetic research, testing and patenting, and a concluding analysis on horizons for moral discernment that retrospectively synthesizes the contributions. The cumulative and collaborative analysis generates helpful perspectives to guide ethics discourse in this constantly changing landscape of human genetics. The contributors appropriately explain that the scientific possibilities in the field highlight the need not only for scientific literacy among patients but also for skilled genetic counsellors among professionals. And astutely the study emphasizes the need for an increased awareness about the social and cultural forces in this field, such as assumptions about perfectionism and consumerism. Undoubtedly, these forces can influence personal and professional decisions about genetic science and technology in health care, not least when market driven technologies can exploit basic fears of suffering and death. Also, the collection justifiably highlights the foundaitonal distinction between biological and human meaning. That is, the scientific or biological meaning of health should not overshadow the deeper significance of human meaning and value that are especially evident in the face of unavoidable suffering and death. Finally, the work offers an excellent account of the transcendent nature of humanity. In doing so, the authors highlight the spiritual and religious perspectives of the human condition to provide a necessary context for discerning appropriateness and limits when considering genetic technologies. In sum, this impressive study provides a stellar academic resource for scholars and students in the increasingly complex specialty of ethics and genetics. Another multidisciplinary collection of essays, Theology, Disability and the New Genetics, edited by John Swinton and Brian Brock, engages a remarkably sophisticated theological discourse around the issues of genetics and human disability. The essays arise from an international three-day symposium that occurred in 2005 in the Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability at the University of Aberdeen. The purpose of the collection is to provide a theological reflection upon the experiences and perspectives of those with a disability, of families supporting disabled relatives, and of professionals dedicated to caring for the disabled. Understanding disability within a theological context assumes the active presence of God in a manner that enables us to envision a way of life in which the transformative presence of God plays a grace-filled role. The essays pursue an interpretation of genetics and genetic technology that construes disability in terms of love, hospitality, and hope for deliverance rather than merely in terms of sickness, disease, suffering or tragedy. And with impressive perspicacity the study shows how this theological approach locates disability at the center of humanity rather than at its margins. This vision interprets views of normality and eugenics to critically reconsider widely discussed perspectives on related issues. For example, the common resort to prenatal testing can reveal widespread and often mistaken assumptions about the meaning of disabilty in our technologically driven age. This vision projects a religious stance about our common destiny to present a bold view of disability as meaning anything that prevents us from being made perfect in God's image. In this humbling worldview everyone can be understood as being disabled. The collection is divided into four sections to discuss the experience of disability in the context of modern genetics, the continuing debate over eugenics and disability, the scientific promise and perils of the new genetics for disability, and the contribution of theological concepts to understanding disability. In particular, the discussions of theological concepts offer insightful perspectives on life's goodness, on the meaning of personhood, and on the quest for perfectionism. To address these concepts with religious vigour the study seeks to recalibrate medicine's healing goals within a context of what is described as divine liturgy. That is, the contributors pursue the hermeneutical quest of enlightening our dependence on and acceptance of one another before God's redemptive grace. In other words, the collection helpfully explains that a theology of disability can help us to recognize disabled people as having lives worth living with deep and godly significance. Their lives urge an appropriate response from us as individuals and communities across the spectrum of science, politics, and religion by pursuing transformative and embodied practices. And these practices should seek to enact the Christian tradition of fostering what is called the foundational solidity of all humanity that includes and welcomes the disabled. This is a scholarly text that is written for a general audience that will not only provide clarity about the ethical issues on disablity and genetics but also inspire readers to reconsider the dynamic and gracious contribution of theology to this discourse.

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