With the arrival of 2001, the twenty-first century has finally dawned! After changing our calendars, we'll have to begin training our minds and our mouths to identify the 1900s, not the 1800s, as "the previous century."

"A..2001," historians Will write. "Anno Domini 2001," scholars will intone. "The year of our Lord 2001," Christians will confess.

What will this new century bring?

As the previous century was drawing to a close, many were saying this new one would surely go down in history as "the information age." Information essential to most kinds of economic productivity now zips through micro­processors and silicon chips, packaged in bits and bytes, spewed through fax machines and cell phones. Indeed, information has never been more accessible.

But with them of our new century, a challenger has burst upon the scene, promising us a far bigger scien­tific-industrial bang and investment buck. Move over, Bill Gates! Make way for DNA! The gene genie is out of the bottle. This new century will be known, pundits are predicting, as "the biotech century," the "genetic age," even the "second Genesis."

Biotechnology is emerging as the new darling of countless suitors within western culture, alluring many with her seductive potential for reshaping the global economy and remaking our society. Those falling at her feet in breathless adoration include farmers and fisheries, physicians and pharma­ceuticals, manufacturers and mili­tary.

Farmers in the Lead⤒🔗

Recent advances in molecular biology have yielded an unprece­dented increase in human power over living things. In former years, it took generations of selec­tive breeding to create new forms of plants and animals. Today, by directly altering an organism's genetic information we can radi­cally modify individual biological forms of life.

The first wave of applying genet­ic research to agriculture came during the 1990s. Biotech compa­nies focused on engineering crops with built-in pesticides or herbi­cides, for example. Hormone-fed animals now produce more milk and better meat than ever; they are ready for market in far less time than our farming forefathers would have thought possible. The second wave is about to begin, with the promise of foods that are better tasting, more nutritious, and less expensive. Agricultural biotech leader Monsanto has brought to market its new Golden Rice, a fortified rice in which a gene taken from daffodils that produces vitamin A was added to conventional rice. Result: a rice that can help reduce vitamin A deficiency, overcoming suscepti­bility to blindness and disease, useful especially in poor coun­tries. This new wave of biotech research is also aiming to bring us plants that can produce pharma­ceuticals and fuels.

Raising animals and other food supplies benefit from genetic engineering as well. Already sci­entists have engineered a fast-growing salmon that grows to full size in about half the usual time. The company is Aqua Bounty, locate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Its president and CEO explains this application of genetic engineering in a way that certainly exposes the kind of rea­soning widespread in this field: "All we've done is change one gene in the salmon to allow it to utilize its own growth hormone more efficiently. It's like tuning a car. Instead of getting 10 miles per gallon, you get 40 miles per gal­lon." (Notice his comparison of a living organism to a machine. We'll return to this later.) If this transgenic product is approved by the regulatory agencies, this tech­nology could supply more high-protein fish as food without the need for more ocean space for aquaculture pens.

How Safe Will Farming Be?←⤒🔗

Accident statistics tell us that farming is among the most haz­ardous occupations in our society. Working with high-powered machinery is only one of many physical risks involved in agricul­ture. Farmers hurting themselves on the job is one thing; but farm­ers hurting the rest of us through unforeseen consequences of these new biotechnologies is quite another matter. Some observers worry about these consequences for human health and for the envi­ronment.

What happens, for example, when grain genetically engineered for animal use ends up in products on your grocery shelf? What hap­pens when crops designed to with­stand herbicides cross-pollinate with nearby weeds, creating a new breed of superweed? Although most genetically engineered fish are being designed to live in com­mercial tanks and fish farms, what changes would occur among the indigenous fish population of rivers and oceans if through flood­ing, for example, such transgenic fish escaped from the farm? These and similar prospects for genetic pollution are generating high-level discussions surrounding legal lia­bility and insurability against environmental catastrophes.

Some critics point to a catch-22 feature of the new technology. Current biotechnology is an extractive industry, able only to `mine' rather than to create genet­ic material. As 'new' animal and vegetable products are engineered, we face an increased rate of species extinction as the 'newer and better' come to dominate the field and displace less desirable plants and animals. An increasing number of scientists are becoming concerned that the loss of genetic diversity is reducing the genetic pool.

Animals First, People Next←⤒🔗

In June 2000, an international team of scientists announced that they had essentially cracked the human genome — the collection of all the genes and other genetic material that make up the basic blueprint of human life. The National Human Genome Research Institute (Bethesda, Maryland), is a federally funded effort to decipher a person's genet­ic code, or DNA. This genetic data will become available free of charge to the public.

During the past 18 months, 33 different disease-causing genes have been found. More than 4,000 diseases are thought to be related to mutated genes that are inherited from one or both parents. Whether a gene actually triggers a disease can depend on a variety of factors, including lifestyle and the envi­ronment. Even so, genetic testing can determine if a person has apredisposition to a particular con­dition. Many doctors now offer these tests for cancers that run in families, including a test for the BRCA gene mutations that predis­pose women to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Genetic test­ing can also alert us to conditions such as Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, and danger­ously high cholesterol. In a variety of ways genetic testing can benefit people whose risk of certain dis­eases is high. One way is helping to determine whether a disease will progress rapidly or slowly.

Gene therapy is perhaps the most widely publicized potential benefit of genetic research. The aim of gene therapy is to correct the expression of mutated genes in order to cure disease. One com­mon approach involves replacing defective genes that can cause or contribute to hundreds of disor­ders. In other cases, gene-based therapies provide an alternative way to deliver proteins such as insulin and growth hormone, which currently must be injected frequently into a patient. In April 2000, researchers reported that gene therapy had cured two infants who had inherited a dis­ease that had left them without a working immune system. Studies in animal genetics indicate that gene therapy might help overcome hemophilia and stimulate bone growth.

Since 1982 insulin has been pro­duced through recombinant DNA, a technique that since 1986 has offered us hepatitis vaccine and human growth hormones. Gene-splicing (discovered in 1973) can produce drugs, hormones, and vaccines at a lower cost and with greater purity than those same products prepared from animal serum or natural sources.

This technology is combining new fields of study with new industrial and medical applica­tions. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genes interact with drugs; its goals include reducing the side effects of medication by isolating and removing any gene that causes a reaction. Medical and pharmaceutical biotechnolo­gies combine to help doctors pre­scribe proper dosages and evalu­ate complications resulting from mixing medications

Closer to Home: Manipulating human genes←⤒🔗

Researching and altering the genetic design of plants, animals, and drugs have become widely accepted within the scientific and industrial communities. Of rising concern, by contrast, is research­ing and altering human genetic design.

Somatic-cell genetic therapy (working with genetic material drawn from a person's own body [soma], perhaps an organ or tis­sue) affects only the person treat­ed. By contrast, germ-line therapy (genetic manipulation of human eggs and sperm) brings about genetic changes that will be passed on to future generations. Somatic-cell therapy treats the existing individual, whereas germ-line therapy affects all future humankind — a difference crucial to our moral evaluation of this new technology.

Incidentally, be on the lookout for the mis-definition of germ-line therapy to include the genetic manipulation of embryo cells. The personhood of an embryo requires us to define this as somatic-cell therapy, also known as embryonic stem cell research. Researchers have discovered that the easiest way to produce stem cells is to divide an early stage embryo into its component cells — and thereby to destroy this embryonic human being.

Stem cell research is on the verge of proridhiglignificant help for many who suffer from a vari­ety of diseases. These cells can have the capacity to develop into badly needed body parts such as tissues and organs. Someone with diabetes, for instance, might be given replacement pancreatic cells that would produce normal amounts of insulin. Similar treat­ments may be developed for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's dis­eases. Stem cells taken from adult bone marrow have been trans­formed into nerve cells. With each passing month, non-embryonic stem cell research is uncovering still greater potential for health care and medical treatment.

Human cloning may soon become the preferred means for producing human embryonic stem cells for use in research to develop medical therapies. Already a British medical commission is recommending approval of "thera­peutic cloning," whereby patients enjoy therapeutic benefits derived from the cloned embryo's stem cells. Clearly the cloned embryo does not benefit, but is merely being used for the sake of another person. To prevent the develop­ment of cloned fetuses and babies ("reproductive cloning"), the British commission is urging that all cloned embryos be destroyed after 14 days.

Embryonic stem cell cloning offers a solution to the problem of transplanting tissue or cells with­out having the recipient reject the implanted material. Cells obtained from an embryo which has been cloned by inserting a patient's own DNA into an egg cell would likely not be rejected as quickly, since the genetic material is identical.

However, it is obvious that thera­peutic cloning involves the cre­ation and destruction of some human beings for the sake of oth­ers. Such research and practices have been condemned by the Council of Europe, when at its 1998 Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine this Additional Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings was adopted: ". . .the instrumentalisation of human beings through the deliberate cre­ation of genetically identical human beings is contrary to human dignity and thus consti­tutes a misuse of biology and medicine." At this time, obtaining human embryonic stem cells involves destroying human embryos.

American public policy on this point, formulated in guidelines released by the National Institute of Health, is schizophrenic: it for­bids public funding for embryonic stem cell research (and the requi­site destruction of embryos), but permits public funding to support the use of such research.

From Science Lab To Social Policy←⤒🔗

Along with improved capabilities for gathering personal genetic data will come ethical and policy ques­tions relating to the use of this data.

To what use will this data be put? If genetic susceptibility tests are useful for the sake of individu­alized therapy and treatment, should they be required for insur­ance purposes? For employment? Should the results become part of one's criminal record?

Inevitably the issue of eugenics arises in this context. Eugenics (from the Greek, meaning 'well­born') relates to the improvement of hereditary qualities of a race or breed. Biotechnology confronts us with a new form of perfectionism, this one not a moral perfectionism (we've surrendered that ideal!) but a biological perfectionism. As we move into this biotech century, be alert for new, biological defini­tions of 'guilt' and 'crime' and `duty,' definitions that allow us to view biological advance as moral improvement.

Already people are speaking of responsibility for the health of those not yet conceived. With technology comes choice, and with choice comes responsibili­ty — the responsibilities of parents for their offspring, of the medical industry for allocation of resources, of insurance companies for acceptable coverage. Prenatal testing, beginning with amniocen­tesis in the 1960s, has already pro­vided the philosophical arguments for germ-line genetic intervention. Because less than 15% of the dis­eases detected by prenatal testing can be treated, the knowledge that parents acquire through such test­ing often results in terrible moral and psychological pressure, for the facing of which modern west­ern society is singularly ill-equipped. Relief from such pres­sure is offered by the cutting-edge technology called pre-implanta­tion genetics, or genetic screening of an embryo-properly termed "parental eugenics." The possibili­ty of genotyping raises once again the specter of genetic stigma, of government-mandated genetic testing of couples seeking mar­riage licenses, of social policies designed in terms of desirable and undesirable genetic traits.

Assorted Considerations←⤒🔗

Without attempting in this article to offer a full-blown evaluation of biotechnology, I would like to identify areas of concern that we should be thinking about as we enter the biotech century.

First, in order to evaluate this exploding technology fairly, we must become historically literate. Genetic modification of plants and animals is nothing new; we've been at it for thousands of years. What is new is the precision and pace of genetic discoveries, along with their application to humans. To avoid following alarmist rheto­ric rather than reasoned analysis, we must read widely and intelli­gently in this field, so we can par­ticipate in the cultural discussion with credibility.

Christian moral reflection must pay attention to consequences of human action. In terms of biotech­nology, it seems clear that love for our fellow human beings requires us to gauge the economic and eco­logical consequences of genetic manipulation. Both government and education are heavily invested in biotech industry, the former in terms of potential revenue, and the latter in terms of intellectual capi­tal. Who will guard the genetic chicken coop? Who will be left to develop guidelines and policies aimed at securing global participa­tion, enhancing personal wellbe­ing, guarding environmental safe­ty, and the like?

Those working in fields related to biotechnology need to develop a "predictive ecology," formulat­ing risk assessment standards and procedures. Molecular biologists and biotech companies ought to be required, as part of any approval or patent process, to present the results of field tests performed on a large scale among various ecosystems. Predictability and certainty are the most necessary qualities in the outcome of any scientific experiment, and they are the most lacking in the current biotech industry. Years, even decades, are required to test hypotheses, to experiment, and to assess consequences.

As biotechnology develops, western nations need to enableglobal participation in assessing economic and environmental con­sequences. This technology has the capacity for creating a new form of imperialism. More devel­oped nations could with little trouble blackmail third world coun­tries economically, by inventing a substitute for a third world prod­uct on which local third world economies depend. For most of us, motorized vehicles have become essential to our way of life, so that we might be delighted if biotech engineers found a sub­stitute for rubber. But in Southeast Asia 22 million jobs would be affected by such a discovery. Admittedly, market forces of sup­ply and demand would provide new economic incentives in such countries. But enabling global par­ticipation in evaluating conse­quences would demonstrate a national, industrial moral integrity that would foster worldwide har­mony and long-term cooperation.

Because the biotech revolution involves the very structure of cre­ation, its engineers are working at the outer limits of human finitude.

The danger lies in crossing that boundary, which would result in what C.S. Lewis characterized as "the abolition of man." What may appear to be our increased capaci­ty to control nature turns out, instead. to be something altogether different: "Man's power over nature," Lewis wrote, "turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. . . .Each new power won by man is a power over man as well."

Those responsible for crafting civil and criminal legislation relat­ing to the (mis)applications of biotechnology must prepare them­selves for careful analysis and clear-headed rulings. A society eager to 'engineer' the gene pool cannot escape the kind of eugenics decisions that arise with every new advance in biotechnology. The failure of parents to correct genetic defects in utero may well come to be regarded as a moral, if not a legal, crime. As more par­ents bring "wrongful birth" law­suits against healthcare profes­sionals who neglected to provide advice or screening for a child's potential health problems, we will come face to face with the mean­ing of human existence and the right to exist.

Definitions and language become so important as this technology develops. Already the prevailing terminology betrays a view of Nature as a mechanism. Scientists and media employ the language of mechanical systems: DNA code, gene splicing, and genetic engi­neering. Whereas we formerly spoke of human procreation — a term emphasizing our participa­tion in a world created by God-the term of choice today is reproduc­tion, betraying a tendency to view people more as things or products rather than as divine creatures.

Our definition of 'health' will affect our moral evaluation of medical and genetic choices. We must become suspicious of expan­sive definitions of health which obscure important differences between curative and cosmetic improvement. As far back as 1946 the World Health Organization offered this expansive description of health: 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well­being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.' By this definition, an adolescent with acne who suffers social awkwardness could be characterized as unhealthy. So too could a woman with noticeably imbalanced ears who won't get hired to model ear­rings. Because we now have effective human growth hormones that can help overcome dwarfism, `ordinary' shortness among chil­dren is being called-by physicians. pharmaceuticals, and insur­ance companies — a disease. But if `ordinary' shortness is a disease, what then is health?

Just as different values and goals enable us to distinguish cosmetic surgery from restorative surgery, so too we must distinguish in our moral judgments between genetic therapy used to enhance life rather than to remove a malady or restore bodily function. But per­haps the very distinction between cosmetic and restorative surgery needs further refinement. Is laser surgery to improve vision cosmet­ic or restorative? What about plas­tic surgery? If we may use med­ical and genetic techniques and procedures to make a bad body good (think of prosthetics), may we also use them to make a good body better (steroids and growth hormones)? Where will we find the exit off this genetic highway? Indeed, where is the exit?

Regarding the advancing tech­nology of pre-natal screening, Gilbert Meilaender observes that we have no way out of our moral difficulties by simply going for­ward with our experiments and developments.

"We may tell ourselves that we only want to know the health of the feotus, that abortion is not a possible end in view, but for the most part, I think, we thereby deceive ourselves. The technology carries its own momentum, which, if not irresistible, is nevertheless very powerful. It prepares us not for the kind of commitment that parenthood requires, an unconditional commitment, but for a kind of responsibility that finite beings ought to reject. The time of preg­nancy will be better spent learning to love the child we have been given before we begin to evaluate and assess that child's capacities. Christians could do the world a considerable favor and could bear substantial witness to the meaning of God's own love for the world if they would simply say no to rou­tinized prenatal screening — there­by saying to their children and, by implication, to all others: 'It's good that you exist.'" (italics added).

We would be wrong to castigate those engaged in biotech research and development for seeking to "play God." They are part of a centuries-long process of mankind following the God-given cultural mandate. Moreover, God has designed human economic relation­ships such that for every manufactur­er's push there is a consumer's pull. In other words, public demand for the results of their work is being both created and satis­fied. So we are called to examine and govern our own desires —whether for tastier shrimp, smarter children, or pain‑free living. Every scientific discov­ery, every technological applica­tion, every marketable invention confronts you with this question: To what extent are you satisfied with divine providence? Will this novelty, this development merely satisfy discontent in our lives, or will it enhance our stewardship and service toward God and our neighbor? What does it mean, really, to "be content in whatever circumstances" (Phil. 4.11)?

A.D. 2001: Welcome to "the century of our Lord"!←⤒🔗

Who knows, really, what this new century will bring? Well, to be precise, this new century will 'bring' us nothing. That way of putting the question is misleading, because any answer conveys an impersonalism that does not fit our faith. Rather, our personal, loving, heavenly Father, to whom belongs every moment of every century, will give His children all things necessary for body and soul, both in life and in death. No matter what the pundits predict or the historians conclude regarding this century, no matter what kind of `revolution' may be in the offing, God's promises will pull us forward through time, along the road of faith-obedience.

Our pilgrimage through time will be the more enjoyable when by faith we season our scientific diligence with humility, when we render our technological stewardship as service to God and our neighbor, and when we satu­rate all our work with worship. That, I think, is what David was singing about when he wrote:

O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splen­dor above the heavens!

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have estab­lished strength

Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field. The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8:1-9

RESOURCES For more information, you may find these useful: Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, by Gilbert Meilaender (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996)—a must read for a good theological-ethical overview The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, by Jeremy Rifkin (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998)—be careful with this one-sided (chemophobic, some might say), but informative analysis "The Gene Genie's Progeny," by David A. Christopher, in The World and I (January 2000): 172-179—a presentation of the wide-ranging applications of genetic research Medische ethiek, by J. Douma (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1997)—an informed and nuanced analysis covering the field of medical ethics "Releasing the Gene Genie," by Robert B. Eckhardt, in The World and I (January 2000): 164-171-an excellent introductory article, pro­viding historical perspective and technical discussion The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies, and the Family, ed. by John F. Kilner, Paige C. Cunningham, and W. David Hager (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000)-must reading for an up-to-date discussion "Who's in Charge of the Gene Genie," by Jane Maienschein, in The World and I (January 2000): 180-187-a provocative, but finally disap­pointing discussion of values associated with genetic engineering www.stemcellresearch.org: Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics www.chbd.org: The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity