Christianity and the New Eugenics: Should We Choose To Have Only Healthy Or Enhanced Children?

by Calum Mackellar

What will it mean for society if science enables us to choose a future child whose health, athletic ability or intelligence is predetermined? This future is becoming ever more likely with the latest developments in human reproduction -- but concerns are growing about the implications.

New procedures making possible heritable genetic modifications such as genome editing open the door to ‘sanitized’ selective eugenics; but these practices have some unnerving similarities to the discredited eugenic programmes of early twentieth-century regimes. A Christian perspective based on Scripture gives us the resources we urgently need to evaluate both current and future selection practices.

Calum MacKellar offers an accessible, inter-disciplinary analysis, blending science, history and Christian theology. This book will enable you to become fully informed about the new scientific developments in human reproduction – developments that will affect us all.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

Published May 21, 2020

Reviews

[James Armstrong]

Good book overall. Quite dry in parts when he gets into more detailed biomedical ethics. Enjoyed parts about the image of God

[Mannie Liscum]

MacKellar, an ordained minister with a PhD in biochemistry, has crafted a very thoughtful philosophical and ethical exploration of newgenics from a Christian perspective. If you, like me, are secular and non-Christian, not to worry; MacKellar does not push his Christian perspective as the only ethic to consider. Of course he does provide the Christian take but most of the book merely presents human ethics and ideas through a Christian lens, but not exclusively. This book really made me think. 4.5 stars.