Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade. Such divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and different judgments about the appropriate relations between law and morality in the context of pluralism. (...) As this paper explores, however, despite those differences, a generally identifiable “Christian” position concerning the moral status of abortion can be distinguished from secular philosophical judgments on the issue, which is important for Christian engagement with public policy debate. (shrink)

A dispute exists about whether bioethics should become a new discipline with its own methods, competency standards, duties, honored texts, and core curriculum. Unique expertise is a necessary condition for disciplines. Using the current literature, different views about the sort of expertise that might be unique to bioethicists are critically examined to determine if there is an expertise that might meet this requirement. Candidates include analyses of expertise based in "philosophical ethics," "casuistry," "atheoretical or situation ethics," "conventionalist relativism," "institutional guidance," (...) "regulatory guidance and compliance," "political advocacy," "functionalism," and "principlism." None succeed in identifying a unique area of expertise for successful bioethicists that could serve as a basis for making it a new discipline. Rather expertise in bioethics is rooted in many professions, disciplines and fields and best understood as a second-order discipline. (shrink)

Current philosophical and legal bioethical reflection on reprogenetics provides little more than a rationalization of the interests of science. There are two reasons for this. First, bioethicists attempt to address ethical issues in a “language of precision” that characterizes science, and this works against analogical and narratological modes of discourse that have traditionally provided guidance for understanding human nature and purpose. Second, the current ethical and legal debate is framed by a public/private distinction that banishes robust norms to the private (...) realm, and leaves a minimalist public discourse of harm avoidance that is insufficient for regulating the science. In this essay, I argue that Mark Hanson's account of anxiety provides a valuable starting point for addressing deficiencies in the current philosophical and legal debate, and it highlights the need for a theological discourse on genetic enhancements. Through an assessment of Joel Shumann's criticism of the public/private distinction, I show how the needed theological discourse should be situated in the context of robust communities, and how such a communitarian inter-ethic is compatible with a variant of liberalism. Finally, I critically assess James Keenan's account of virtue and perfection, in order to outline what a sufficient discourse on reproductive and genetic enhancements requires. (shrink)