Editorial (Spring/Summer 2024)

This combined issue of Dignitas features an expanded collection of three articles. These cover a wide range of bioethical issues, including euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, CRISPR technology for sickle cell disease, and human enhancement. This issue of Dignitas focuses on bioethical issues in relation to technology, with Barczi and Dunne’s articles centered in this realm. All three of these articles sit at the intersection of theology and bioethics, addressing fundamental questions about the essential nature of human beings. In this respect, the three essays delve into the human quest to improve everything, even our own lives, which sometimes leaves us feeling lost. At the same time, they draw us to a biblical understanding of human nature and life. Also included in this issue is a review from Joseph Dunne of the book Biotechnology, Human Nature, and Christian Ethics, authored by Gerald McKenny.

In a news release dated October 1, 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that people around the world are living longer, and a majority of people today can expect to live into the 60s or beyond. This is evident in the fact that every country around the world is seeing an increase in both the size and proportion of older people in their population. With these demographic changes, it is only natural to expect increased interest in end-of-life issues. In the first article, Caitlyn Trader provides an anthropological understanding of suffering as it relates to human decisions to end one’s own life. The author aims to reflect on the reasons why people choose assisted suicide and suggests alternatives to each of these reasons, emphasizing human dignity and the value of life. Trader analyzes data from countries that legally permit euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide to clarify why people want to choose these. Her analysis of why people seek euthanasia breaks down the reasons into three factors: “loss of human dignity,” “inadequate pain control, or concern about it,” and “perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers.” In her view, all three factors deeply involve the problem of suffering. To illustrate, the feeling of having lost one’s worth and dignity may cause sadness, pain, and even moral distress. Inadequate pain control or concern about it also may indicate physical suffering or anxiety about it. Lastly, being perceived as a burden to family and others runs counter to our desire for independence and may entail emotional suffering.

Suffering in some form or another is always present in human life. We may then ask ourselves how we as Christians should perceive suffering from a biblical perspective. Accordingly, this article shifts its focus to exploring the value of suffering from a biblical foundation. Trader first provides the “Christocentric understanding of suffering,” reinforcing that Jesus’ suffering bore wonderful fruit, namely our salvation. The fruit of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is in those who believe in him. The author explains that just as we can see the value of Christ’s suffering, we can also find the value in the suffering of those who follow him. She cites the Apostle Paul’s statement that Christ invites the faithful to share in His suffering (Col 1:24) and affirms that the union of believers with Christ is strengthened through their sufferings, which brings them into an intimate union with their Lord. She also mentions another benefit of the suffering that believers face: It can be an opportunity for them to align their wills with God’s will and be conformed to the image of Christ. Trader finally reminds us that Christians are imitators of Christ and share in his suffering as caregivers to those in need. Her essay inspires us with deep empathy for those who suffer and encourages us as imitators of Christ to care for those in need.

In December 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease (SCD). One of two approved treatments, Casgevy, involves CRISPR technology, which cuts DNA at targeted areas and may allow for precise gene editing. This can be a cutting-edge treatment for patients with sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder. However, at the same time, this has raised moral concerns about gene editing. This second article, written by Nathan Barczi, provides an in-depth ethical and theological analysis of the medical use of CRISPR. He first explains the current situation of sickle cell patients. According to the CDC, this disease affects approximately 100,000 people, 90% of whom are non-Hispanic Black or African-American. Barczi points out that many minority patients with sickle cell disease may have no access to adequate care in the U.S. healthcare system and may be treated with disrespect by healthcare providers because of their race or other factors related to their disease. He further reminds us that although it has FDA approval, the new CRISPR technology requires sickle cell patients to undergo long-term, painful, and expensive procedures. 

In his article, Barczi addresses ethical issues surrounding a novel CRISPR treatment for sickle cell disease. According to him, those in favor of using germline editing as a therapy claim that editing somatic cells does not alter the human germline but alleviates pain. While acknowledging that CRISPR therapy itself targets only somatic cells and does not alter human germ cells, Barczi raises two concerns from a theological perspective: safety and inequity. First, there is a potential risk of safety concerns, such as off-target editing that could lead to unknown outcomes. Another concern is inequity. Barczi notes that the treatment has a cost of $2 million per patient. Inequitable research funding for sickle cell treatments has led to distrust and alienation from the healthcare system among many in the sickle cell community. He believes that CRISPR therapy for sickle cell disease raises a theological issue beyond its impact on the human body. In concluding this article, Barczi gently calls on us to remember the orderly love in creation and to respect human dignity as beings made in the image of God, especially towards those who suffer from physical illness and social alienation.

The third essay in this issue is by Joseph Dunne. In his essay, “Of Caterpillars and Cocoons: Bioenhancement in Lewis’s Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength,” Dunne explores the controversial issues of bioenhancement, transhumanism, and the like. This article begins by introducing Joe Rogan’s Cocoon Hypothesis, which posits that biological intelligent life will eventually give birth to artificial life, much like a caterpillar makes a cocoon to produce a new life form. In Rogan’s view, technological evolution is progressing at an incredibly fast rate compared to biological evolution and makes artificial intelligence close to a god. Dunne raises the question of how we, as Christians, should respond to this controversial issue. He finds answers in the apologetic insights of C. S. Lewis’s writings: The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength. In this essay, Dunne aims to present how Lewis addresses contemporary Rogan-esque challenges in the areas of bioenhancement or transhumanism, and what Lewis would say about this controversy.

Dunne cites Lewis’s critique of Modernism on modern man’s attempt to conquer Nature, human nature, and God. First, human conquest of Nature is not only of the natural environment but extends to the conquest of difficulties in human life, such as disease and pain, and beyond that to the desire to overcome humans’ natural limitations, such as death. In the author’s view, this is further manifest in the position of the character Filostrato in Lewis’s science fiction, That Hideous Strength, who seems to reject the “organic” as impure or bad, even though we ourselves are “organisms.” Man sees the human world as his next target of conquest. Second, to this end, modern man, in Lewis’s view, takes the next step. Man sets aside the “Moral or Natural Law” (or Tao) and instead embraces emotivism, which presupposes that all evaluative and moral judgments are constituted by personal preferences, attitudes, or feelings. Dunne notes Lewis’ view that as humans reject an objective moral law, and emotivism permeates our culture, human dominance over nature manifests itself as the power of some men over others; in other words, they may use other men as an instrument, much as humans use nature (e.g., chemical conditioning or manipulation of the brain). Third, Dunne sees modern man’s attempt to become God as the ultimate destination of modernism. He cites Lewis’s prediction that a minority of “scientific planners” would grant themselves divine status, dominating the rest of humanity. Lewis further points out the irony that Man’s conquest of Nature has been Nature’s conquest of humankind. In conclusion, Dunne suggests that this ironic consequence can be used to counter Rogan-esque views on bioenhancement. His article thus shows the destructive aspects of modern man’s attempt to conquer Nature, human nature, and God, and how this leads to the self-denial of human nature.

This issue also includes an account of worldwide health issues via the timeline in the Global Health Timeline section, a variety of media resources in the Bioengagement section, and news concerning CBHD in the Updates & Activities section. We also keep posting meaningful conversations about current bioethical issues through the Bioethics Podcast, and our Intersections forum. Finally, we always welcome article submissions for our upcoming Dignitas issues.