Last week, as we read endless pages about different tribunals and enquiries, scientists on both sides of the Atlantic announced that they had mapped the human genome. Before this news fades, we should spend some time reflecting on what its outcome may be and ask ourselves where exactly we, as a species, are going. It is only as we ask this kind of question that we realise how few Christian writers and thinkers there are studying in this area. For some reason or other, moral theology has very few exponents in the areas of biotechnology and genetics.
Last week's report - called simply "The Book of Life" - proclaimed a new era in understanding how human life operates. It promised us research that would bring us cures for our ailments, eternal youth and possibly everlasting life. Science has amazingly stumbled into the areas that have sustained religion for so long. The only difference is that this research is intending to defeat the natural antithesis of life - death!
I wonder will this announcement be like a storm in a teacup? The story about frozen water on the moon last year was a hoax; the report of biological fossils in the asteroids from Mars found in the Antarctic was a hoax; and Dolly was born from an artificially inseminated egg so she isn't a clone at all. (A clone is a group of organisms produced asexually from one stock or ancestor.) We hear so much from the laboratories of the world that one has to ask how much truth is there in the reports we hear.
I would love to see something good coming from this research. I would love to see a cure for cancer, I would love to see longevity increased. But I don't think I would enjoy immortality here on earth, nor would I be too enamoured by the concept of life without some sickness.
Before this research goes further there are two beliefs that the researchers should bear in mind. The first of these is the belief that most people desire authenticity in their lives. Most of us want to live a varied and interesting life. We want real experiences, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, good and bad days. As this research continues, let us hope that it respects our desires for authenticity above homogeneity.
The second area is more complex. Science has ventured into the traditional realm of religion, it has also quickly commandeered the least tasteful desire of religion - the will to own and control. For many years, structured religions have attempted control of their adherents by trying to take charge of their intimate lives. Mapping the genome might be a great success, but patenting it is quite another question. No company or laboratory can ever have the right to patent me or anybody else for who they are. The results of the research and the methodology may be patented, but our genome belongs to each and every one of us, and nobody can righteously patent that.
Those of us who live our lives according to the earlier edition of the Book of Life have a duty to stand against any person or organisation who tries to gain control of what makes us who we are. The genome belongs as much to the poor of the developing world as it does to the hardworking biologists of the northern hemisphere. Let us hope that their research will bring good things for all - and let us pray that the colonisation of the 21st century will not be based on selling the health of the less well-off back to them.
F. Mac E.