HSC 440 & PHL 440: Biomedical Ethics

In A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience, Christopher Kaczor investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of "dignity" has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. Kaczor explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty of "procreative beneficence," the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of "rescuing" human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs.

Procreative Ethics addresses questions at the beginning of life from a point of view that is alternatively philosophical and Christian. The author seeks to defend philosophically some positions taken partly on Christian grounds while also trying to make the implications of Christian convictions intelligible to those who do not necessarily share those convictions. The author positions himself neither as a moral friend nor moral stranger, preferring instead the role of moral acquaintance to his audience. From that position, the goal is to find areas of fruitful agreement while clarifying differences that may lead to truer reconciliations further on in the conversation.

A radical examination of the Christian tradition relating to the human embryo and how this relates to the debate today.In recent years, the moral status of the human embryo has come to the fore as a vital issue for a range of contemporary ethical debates: concerning the over-production, freezing and discarding of embryos in IVF; concerning the use of 'spare' embryos for scientific experimentation; and finally, concerning the prospect of producing clone embryos. These debates have involved not only general philosophical arguments, but also specifically religious arguments.

There are three main positions that people adopt within the abortion debate: pro-life, muddled middle, and pro-choice. Jesus v. Abortion critiques the pro-choice and muddled middle positions, employing several unusual angles: (1) The question What would Jesus say about abortion if he were here today? (2) This book adds anthropological insights regarding the function of violence in human culture. (3) This book leads the reader to ask deep questions about the concept of rights. (4) The use of historical analogies in the abortion debate goes both directions, in the sense that both sides accuse the other of being similar to the defenders of slavery.

A Love for Life will provide Christians with the biblical and historical information that they need to make an informed decision on the abortion question. It will also take a critical and biblically-based look at the arguments and theologies of today's most prominent pro-choice clergy. And it will determine if abortion really fulfills the will of God, as many pro-choice Christians believe, or whether abortion is a clearly sinful act. In short, readers of A Love for Life will discover the real message of the church on abortion.

Ambitious in method and scope, Trust Women skillfully interweaves political analysis, sociology, ancient and modern philosophy, Christian tradition, and medical history, and grounds its analysis in the material reality of women's lives and their decisions about sexuality, abortion, and child-bearing. It ends with a powerful re-imagining of the moral contours of pre-natal life and suggests we recognize pregnancy as a time when a woman must assent, again and again, to an ethical relationship with the prenate.

The pro-life movement didn't begin in the 1960s, but in the Garden. Abortion has been a divisive issue in American culture since the sexual revolution. Yet the Bible is an unapologetic defender of human dignity. Moreover, Christians have always cared for the unborn, the orphan, and the least among us. The time is now for this generation to reaffirm what believers have always believed: everybody is created in the image of God. So, what now? Editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission assemble leading voices to frame the issues with a gospel-centered perspective.