Secular bioethics fails to grasp the central moral and spiritual realities of medicine. As the authors in this issue of Christian Bioethics argue, contemporary healthcare practice is often based on the false premise that medical science can secure the safety of human life. Yet, the standard “biopsychosocial model” of medicine fails to grasp the theological dimensions of healthcare often harming patients and their families in the process. Indeed, as the articles explore, all too often secular bioethics manipulates medicine to achieve (...) immoral purposes, such as active euthanasia of the sick or elderly. Such spiritual decay is acutely manifested in the pressure put on patients to accept an economically efficient and medically expedient assisted death as well as in how society often treats the human body as mere res—a thing unimportant in itself apart from animation as a living person. Together the articles illustrate that without careful religiously grounded advice modern medicine is often spiritually disorienting for both patients and practitioners. (shrink)

This issue of Christian Bioethics explores theological, metaphysical, and ethical questions surrounding emerging reproductive technologies. Narratives concerning such technologies are often manipulated via “language games.” Language games involve toying with language to ensure that one’s vision of the good gains or retains political prominence. Such games are common in academic discussions of “artificial womb” technologies. Abortion proponents, for example, are already using language to dehumanize subjects within “artificial wombs.” This is unsurprising. Were relevant subjects considered persons, then abortion access (and (...) other forms of “reproductive autonomy”) might be curtailed. Here, I show that abortion proponents’ language games often depend on dubious metaphysical claims. Second, I argue that Christians should oppose dehumanizing language games, since those games undermine “neighbor-love,” which Christians are commanded to show others. I also highlight how discussions of other technologies—such as medication abortion—are affected by confused (or manipulative) language. Ultimately, the language games I critique aim to preserve and expand the “rights” of the powerful to dehumanize, control, and kill vulnerable human beings. Since neighbor-love commands Christians to provide for “the least of these,” however, Christians must expose these manipulative language games, refute them, and resist the corrupt ideologies from which they flow. (shrink)