wfn.org | Group seeks to help churches address bioethics issues

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

May 14, 2003	  News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington	10-71B{281}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A working group of the World Council of Churches plans to
carry several recommendations on bioethics to the organization's Central
Committee in Geneva this summer.

The working group would like to see the WCC encourage attention to "upstream
questions," said Martin Robra, the council executive who works with the
bioethics issue. Robra spoke at the end of the working group's May 10-13
meeting, hosted by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. The
United Methodist Church is a member and major supporter of the council.

Upstream questions are not concerned with what to do about cloning or
embryonic stem cell research, Robra explained. Those are "midstream
questions," and they tend to dominate most of churches' discussions on
genetics, he said. Rather, the working group seeks a discussion of "What has
brought us here and what did we learn?" he said.

"What is the specific contribution that has to come from churches?" he asked.

The working group hopes the WCC and its member churches will focus on mapping
the debate rather than doing the scientific exploration of the topics, he
said. The Central Committee will meet Aug. 25-Sept. 2.

"What is the problem and who defines it?" he asked. Technological and
sociological viewpoints vie for dominance in thinking about genetics, he
observed. The technological approach tends to isolate a problem and go for a
simple cure, but it ignores the context of the problem. Rarely does an effect
have a single cause, he added.

Alternatives require seeing an issue in context, he declared.

Lopeti Senituli, a member of the working group and director of the Human
Rights and Democracy Movement in Tonga, told of that South Pacific island
nation's experience a few years ago. 

In 2000, an Australian firm named Autogen announced that it had signed an
agreement with the Tongan minister of health to do a study of Tongans' DNA.
The focus was on type II diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes. At the
time, 14 percent of the adult population had this form of diabetes.

"Basically all negotiation was done in secret," Senituli said. The company
claimed it would build a research facility, provide research grants and share
any product developed with the Tongan people free of charge. 

The Tongan Council of Churches was the first group to ask why the issue had
not been discussed in the parliament, he said. The council also received
assistance from the WCC in finding a way to inform religious leaders of other
Pacific nations about what was happening. The WCC funded a workshop in 2001
and brought together experts from Germany and the United States, theologians
from the Pacific region and Tongan legal experts.

"As a result of that workshop, the Tongan National Council of Churches was
ready to confront the Tongan government and Autogen on not only theological
grounds but also in terms of scientific knowledge as to why the Autogen
research proposal should not be accepted," Senituli recalled. 

The council of churches believed that research should not include changes
that would be impossible to monitor closely, he said. Since the research
aimed to identify and alter the gene related to diabetes, any genetic
modifications would affect future generations, he said. 

People also felt revulsion for the idea that someone could own part of
someone else's body, he added. "The human person is God's creation," and the
Tongans could not accept a "commodification" of people or their parts, he
said.

"We're very concerned about the 14 percent of the Tongan population who
suffer from diabetes," he said. The council was challenged for objecting to
research that could lead to a cure, but the group responded that the "cure"
was questionable and not certain.

"Type II diabetes is a lifestyle disease," Senituli asserted. The cure is
preventive care involving changing dietary habits and increasing exercise, he
said. He credited the ministry of health with doing a good job of education
about this. 

Autogen withdrew in light of the opposition it encountered.

In the case of Tonga, Robra noted, an Australian company was acting for the
French subsidiary of Merck, a German pharmaceutical company. Such complex
relationships, coupled with the opportunities to sell properties or go out of
business, make legal and financial liability extremely difficult to pursue. 

"Churches are confronted with a variety of justice issues," he remarked.

Some of the examples he cited include prenatal diagnostics that could be used
for "negative selection" or aborting certain types of babies; discrimination
resulting from people with disabilities being seen as defective or inferior
beings; commodification of children; and exploitation of individuals and
groups through patenting.

"It's a question of the trajectory of our culture," Robra said. Is it a
community of caring or an individual fix - "health as nurture versus health
as product (a technological fix)?" Perhaps society overemphasizes the
technological fix and forgets "health as nurture" in the context of a caring
community, he theorized.

The working group's recommendations for WCC member churches include
establishing an ecumenical network by which the churches could share
information on such issues as bio-piracy. Bio-piracy refers to an
organization, such as a company, seeking an agreement with a group or
individuals to use their cells, DNA or blood to develop a medicine or therapy
that becomes a patent-protected product of that corporation, Robra said. The
"donors" may get a little care or compensation, but the profit and ownership
rests with a far removed corporate entity, he said.

"Our task is to somehow create an ecumenical platform to exchange information
and respond," Robra said. Other recommendations developed by the group
include continuing the working group, holding a bioethics seminar in 2004 and
a larger conference the same year, and releasing a study document in 2005.

# # #

 
 
 
 
Pre-General Conference News Briefing set for January '04
 
Feb. 25, 2003 News media contact: M. Garlinda Burton7
(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn. 10-21-71B{104}

By United Methodist News Service
 
Religion journalists and church media representatives are invited to attend a
news briefing Jan. 29-31, 2004, on the pressing legislative concerns to be
considered by the United Methodist Church's governing body next year.
 
The 2004 Pre-General Conference News Briefing will be held at the Ramada
Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. The city will also host the General Conference,
the denomination's highest legislative body, April 27-May 7, 2004.
 
General Conference, which comprises 1,000 lay and clergy delegates from
around the world, meets every four years to set policy and direction for the
9 million-member denomination, the second-largest Protestant body in the
United States. 
 
Presenters at the briefing will answer journalists' questions on issues
facing the conference, including: the role of youth and young adults in the
future church; the meaning and nature of Holy Communion; and possible church
pronouncements on contemporary social issues such as war and terrorism
 
Registration information will be mailed to media representatives this summer.
For more details, contact Tim Tanton at United Methodist News Service, (615)
742-5470 or ttanton@umcom.org.

# # #

 
 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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