The Transformational Agenda: Medicine, Plurality & Gender
The three clusters of issues - medical ethics, the nature of gender and the ground rules for a multi faith society - which have caused a re-examination of the relationship between church and state could hardly be more different from the traditional concerns which were largely centred on process - which institution should have what powers? - rather than outcome.
The three topics can each be understood solely as matters requiring an understanding of the requirements of Scripture but this would be to narrow the analysis unduly. Taking each of the three in turn:
- Most current issues in medical ethics would have been unimaginable to the authors of the Bible and so we need to look for an over-riding principle which might guide us in individual ethical dilemmas. The usual principle at the 'birth end' of the life span is the 'sanctity' of life. There is no evidence of support for this principle in the Bible and, it could be argued, God frequently instructed the Jews to perform brutal abortions in the course of killing the women of their enemies. At the other end of the spectrum there is no consideration of the balance between prolonging life and allowing it to die; and no strictures against suicide. The principle of 'non interference' in the course of nature is impossible to sustain in a Biblical context; starting from the creation of Eve (a parable which, as Alan Billings notes [i] , has implications for our understanding of cloning) mankind is encouraged to dominate and manipulate nature. Because the Christian principles which have grown up around these issues are derivative, a Biblical analysis is therefore inadequate;
- The Bible is a hopeless guide to gender issues because, again, its authors could not imagine our socio-cultural condition. There is no general principle which can be derived from the texts. The notion of 'male headship', derived from Genesis 3 is contradicted in Genesis 2; there are women prophets and military leaders in the Old Testament and the women in the New Testament are remarkably salient. There has been much discussion about the Bible and homosexuality but, again, the instances are far too restricted to produce a general principle. In both cases the general principles which have arisen are derivative and cultural (as they are in Islam);
- The Bible is equivocal in the extreme about the rights of those who do not share its core beliefs: the relationship between the Jews and the Egyptians cover the whole gamut of hostility and affection; God uses foreign powers to punish His Chosen people; and New Testament Christianity is, naturally, only concerned with Judaism and Paganism. Principles of inter-religious behaviour have been largely cultural and pragmatic.
It is therefore important to stress at the outset of any analysis of these derivative principles that they are not fundamental Christian standpoints with clear Biblical authority. When we say that legislation is founded on Christian principles what we are likely to mean is that it is founded on principles which are accepted by Christians at a given time. And so, for example, when we say that Christian opposition to contraception is based on the principle of non interference with the course of nature we might have the story of Onan at the back of our minds but it must be read in the context of the behaviour of Lot's daughters. The survival of the race is no longer our primary concern and, over time, Christianity will adjust its moral codes accordingly. So the question we always have to ask ourselves is how far are we supporting a Christian principle and how far are we supporting a principle which has been supported for some time by Christians?
Rather than looking at hypothetical questions, I will deal with a single, contemporary issue from each of the three clusters:-
- Reproductive tissue in research;
- Homosexual parenting; and
- The adoption of Sharia Law.
a) Reproductive tissue in research.
There are three principles advanced in opposition to the use of reproductive material in research:-
- Non interference with the course of nature;
- The sanctity of life; and
- Prudential boundaries against exploitation.
The first of these is difficult to sustain in the face of the panoply of health and medical practices which its proponents are prepared to sanction. If a triple heart bypass is permitted to sustain life whereas a condom is not permitted to frustrate its creation, is the basic principle that interference can only be permitted to sustain life rather than that nature should not be interfered with? If this is the case, this has implications for our discussion of the use of reproductive material. In the meantime, we need to note that nature, left to itself, is both prodigal and precautionary, that it takes full account of the external environment in controlling the prosperity of a species. We might note in our own species that fertility rates drop as prosperity rises which makes excessive consumption a greater factor in fertility than contraception.
The sanctity of life principle is invoked in those cases where reproductive material, eggs and sperm, are used for medical research. I have already noted that we sanction interference in nature to sustain life but the central issue here is the nature of life. I think that the use of sperm and eggs separately, given the prodigality of nature in both instances, is easy to justify; but the key issue is the use of embryos. The most obvious thing to say is that the use of embryos should be a last resort. We can learn a great deal from the rapid development in cell technology in recent years which has made the stem cell debate morally redundant. We should note in passing that the 'sanctity of life' principle in this context has, like most other Christian principles, been modified over time: Aquinas thought that 'life' was constituted in the womb at the end of the first trimester, not at the moment of conception.
Yet there is one overwhelming consideration which the current debate has almost totally ignored: eggs and sperm, separate or combined in an embryo, are not the property of the state nor the Church but are the private property of the producers who must choose how to use them according to their informed consciences, acting as stewards on behalf of the Creator [ii]. It is not for us, individually or collectively, to tell other people what to do with their eggs and sperm or, for that matter, with their embryos. It is totally wrong to marginalise the exercise of conscience by passing prescriptive laws either to forbid research or to require it.
It is, however, important for society to establish rules about interference with life and that depends upon defining when a life is, for legal purposes, a life. To argue that an entity is a legal life from the instant that the sperm fertilises the egg is a perfectly good moral principle which people can live by but it is a poor legal principle because it is founded on the most extreme case and will not command consent.
These two sets of arguments, about non interference with nature and the sanctity of life, however, are usually advanced as high minded covers for a much more important argument, that any activity will be the thin end of some evil wedge; the spectra of eugenics and Hiroshima are made almost benign by Frankenstein. But the principle that most of the world is not allowed to undertake good and beneficial acts because, given the same situation and materials, some will perform evil and harmful acts, is impossibly abstract. If applied universally it would, at a stroke, bring society to a complete standstill; and so its proponents would have to argue about criteria for its application.
At the root of this discussion, however, there lies the cardinal principle. It is not what you do so much as why you do it. There is surely a difference between the use of contraception as one tool in the maintenance of marriage and its use to facilitate promiscuity; and a difference between the use of embryos for medical research and the use of abortion to make life more comfortable for prospective parents; and, finally, there is a difference between eugenics and mitigating the worst consequences of natural processes by forecasting severe disability and presenting parents with options.
It will emerge later from this discussion that there are many cases where the primacy of motive and individual responsibility should not be respectively compromised by sole concentration on outcome nor abridged by legislation to impose uniformity or conformity.
b) Homosexual Parenting
One of the central problem in considering homosexual parenting is whether the objections to it concern the behaviour of the couple or its effects on the child.
The discussion on medical ethics will have made it clear that there is no ground for imposing a ban on homosexual behaviour between consenting people; to do so would be to interfere with the relationships with God and it would be to judge conduct according to outcome divorced from motive. On this basis, there is no ground for forbidding homosexual parenting simply because of an objection to homosexuality. What we would have to show is that such a household would damage the child.
To put the question in its starkest form, in the way that Roman Catholic moralists might put it: is it harmful to a child to live with an adoptive couple which lives in a permanent state of sin? In many cases the moralist arguing against adoption by a homosexual couple might express the preference for a child to live in a household where a married couple methodically treat each other cruelly rather than in a tranquil household with one or other of them. There might also in some cases be a preference for a child to live in a household permanently contaminated with adultery than with a single parent. As we are all sinners, children are bound to live in sinful households and so the outstanding issues are the degree of sin and the depth of penitence, neither of which can be judged externally. A child might imitate its rearers more than its peers in a variety of ways but there is no evidence that homosexuality falls into this category; after all, until recent medical breakthroughs, most homosexual people have been parented by heterosexual parents. There is no evidence that children adopted by homosexuals will be homosexuals, supposing that that mattered.
From a less extreme perspective, we might want to argue that there are some ways in which a child reared by homosexuals might have a less well faceted life than one reared by heterosexuals, in which case it would follow that homosexual parenting is richer than single parenting.
To sum up, it is difficult to make a coherent argument against homosexual parenting on any ground, biblical, moral or practical.
From the legislative perspective, it would be invidious to propose a restriction on homosexual behaviour which is reciprocally consensual, not harmful to society and, in the specific case of adoption, is more beneficial to a child than, say, being abused in a care home.
In summary, the ground of opposition relies on a single assertion of which legislators would be properly suspicious.
c) Sharia Law
The issue of the limited application of Sharia Law at a tangent to (neither parallel nor below) civil law set out by the Archbishop of Canterbury raises both operational and basic issues in jurisprudence. I will bypass the former as I see no operational difficulties that cannot be overcome with a degree of trust, ingenuity and goodwill. The issues of principle are these:-
- What happens if two jurisdictions fundamentally disagree?
- Are there any fundamental moral or religious principles that must over-ride the civil law?
The answers to the two questions are linked.
First, as long as the difference between principles can be accommodated by civil law, they should be. If, for example, different religions and civil society have different sets of conditions for divorce, these should be accepted as long as the parties have a choice between their faith jurisdiction and the civil jurisdiction. If a couple disagrees about the choice of jurisdiction then the person not seeking the divorce should have the choice [iii]. If we have learned anything over the years it is that the principle of state control over divorce, other than for the purposes of protecting the rights of the weak and of children, simply do not work.
Secondly, there may be many cases where this principle of plurality is offensive to individuals; but as long as uniformity of conduct is not imposed, it is difficult to see a ground for objection. However, the issue of conscientious objection illustrates how a difficult case should be handled. A Christian should maintain a right of public, civil disobedience to a law which imposes unacceptable conduct and should accept the legal consequences. The current position of many Christians is that they prefer unjust laws which saves them from this sacrifice rather than just laws which impose hardship. If, for example, the Church of England is really set on being unjust to homosexual people it should honestly disobey the law and pay up rather than trying to distort the law to save it the inconvenience. Just as we must pay for our own principles, we must pay for our own prejudices.
Thirdly, it is interesting that, conscientious objection aside, Christians have shown little interest in this issue, counting on the secular authorities broadly to share the Christian view, if there is such a thing. As events move faster than legislation and legislation moves faster than ethics, we are bound to face many crises in this area and the Sharia debate provides a salutary lesson. We will no longer be able to rely upon the given-ness of Christianity to guarantee us a specially privileged place in law making. Our only chance of maintaining that we have a recognised right to behave in a peculiarly Christian way in some cases is to concede that right to other groups, such as Moslems. We cannot, for example, say that we must have an exception which allows us to discriminate against homosexuals but Muslims must not have the right to discriminate against women.[i] Alan Billings, Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4 31.3.08 http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20080331.shtml
[ii] The state in the UK seems to make a distinction between the external disposition of tissue (for research) and the internal disposition of tissue ('morning after' pill, abortion up to 24 weeks).
[iii] In the Shariah context, one objection to this position is that Muslim women seeking divorce refused by a husband will be forced into a Shariah Court but it could be countered that women being forced to divorce against their will can seek civil justice. It is tempting but illegal to give the woman the choice in every case.