Christianity and Bioethics: Confronting Critical Issues

Christianity and Bioethics: Confronting Critical Issues. By Mark W. Foreman. Joplin: College Press, 1999, 298 pp., $21,99 paper.

The public and personal life of America is awash in discussions surrounding moral medical decision-making in health care dilemmas. The debate is constantly present, be it over physician-assisted suicide, the sale of human eggs, or private decisions regarding the continuation or forgoing of a family member's life support. The Christian voice is occasionally expressed amidst the humdrum of the secular ethical opinion. It is a voice that needs to provide a defensible moral alternative to common and rare moral dilemmas arising from medical practice in our current medical industrial complex.

Mark Foreman takes up the task of developing a well-reasoned apologetic to a plethora of "clinical issues" in bioethics affecting the professing Christian. His book targets a readership naive to the legal and ethical issues in this not-quite-new field of bioethics. Using a series of landmark legal cases as examples, Foreman raises questions deemed key to our current context of ethical dilemmas.

At the outset Foreman is to be commended for his desire to use terms such as Christian and bioethics with clarity. He continues this practice with a host of other important expressions specific to the ethic's language game. His elaboration of terms, such as deontology and nonmaleficence, are both accurate and engaging, especially with his occasional use of unique humor. The use of annotated lists of websites adds a welcome addition to the end of each chapter which complement the short but satisfactory lists of key reference books in each area of discussion. It would have been useful, however, to further complement the list of references, websites, and glossary of terms with an index. This might be of particular interest for those readers seeking common strands of thought throughout the book such as sanctity of life or quality of life.

He notes his limitation of subject matter, which, except for a short excursus on genetic ethics, emphasizes legal cases about the termination of life. He does a better-thanadequate job raising the ethical issues in areas addressed. A sprinkling of key Biblical passages along with Christian reflections on philosophical flashpoints, like personhood, qualify the book for the category of Christian genera.

Although Foreman does a good job of raising the basic issues when discussing abortion and physician-assisted suicide, there is a concern regarding clarity in the details. For instance, in the context of the legal status of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, Foreman states that "Judge Hogan decided to dismiss the lawsuit" that enjoined Oregon's assisted suicide law in light of the failure of the anti-assisted suicide Ballot Measure 51 to pass. In fact, the Ninth Circuit Court ordered Judge Hogan to lift the injunction on assisted suicide, an order which stood after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Further, Judge Hogan lifted his injunction against assisted suicide October 17, 1997, making the law effective one week before the Measure 51 vote on November 1, 1994. One may conclude that the defeat of Measure 51 was not one of the primary elements in his dismissal of the case as stated.

Perhaps the most disappointing feature, however, is the lack of a clear model to aid those "confronted with clinical issues." Foreman assumes that readers can connect the dots between ethical theory, Christian reflection, and the moral decision. This makes the text less useful for first-time or maybe one-time students of the subject who might be better served by simpler books like Orr, Schiedermayer, and Biebel's book Life and Death Decisions. Also, readers should be aware that they will not be confronted with the "clinical issues" of bioethics as suggested in the title; rather, they will encounter important elements of key legal cases. These things considered, college students and laypersons will find benefit in reading Christianity and Bioethics as collateral reading in the areas of bioethical theory, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and abortion. Foreman should be complimented for his well-reasoned and clearly articulated Christian approach in these areas.

Jerome R. Wernow

Northwest Center for Bioethics, Portland, OR

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Jun 2000
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