For the Love of Children: Genetic Technology and the Future of the Family (Family, Religion, and Culture) [Paperback]

Ted Peters (Author)

Book Description

Series: Family, Religion, and Culture | Publication Date: October 1, 1996

Choices in reproductive technology have multiplied at a staggering rate. Is our society prepared to decide on issues about procreation (artificial insemination and invitro fertilization) or genetic engineering ("designer children" and selective abortion)? How can we protect children--both born and unborn--who are conceived in these ways from being regarded as merchandise in the expanding marketplace of genetic services? Ted Peters sets out the challenges of these new technologies with clarity and precision. He looks anew at Christian theology and proposes an ethic "for the love of children." Peters contends that only by affirming all children and their claims upon parents will society deal constructively and ethically with the many reproductive choices available now and in the future.

The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A wake-up call for religious leaders, this book confronts clergy and laity alike with the perplexing questions surrounding new reproductive technologies, such as surrogate motherhood, genetic engineering, and selective abortion. These technologies can end the heartbreak of infertility, but they can also scramble family relationships, while turning children, surrogate mothers, and sperm-donor fathers into market commodities. Because of such moral risks, some religious leaders have anathematized these new ways to make babies. But Peters hails the new technologies as aids in creating a society freed from the constraints of mere biology, a society committed to fostering the dignity and well-being of each child. It is against the visionary ideals of this new society that the author measures all theological doctrines--classical and contemporary, Catholic and Protestant--governing sexuality, child-bearing, and marriage. This latest volume in the Studies on the Family, Religion, and Culture series will spark widespread interest and heated debate. Bryce Christensen

Review

"In For the Love of Children, Peters believes that increased choice is a fact of contemporary American life and that a choice by parents (regardless of number and gender) is urgently needed to make covenant with children, to commit to loving them with a regard equal to or even greater than the parents' own pursuit of their self-fulfillment. In the midst of the possibilities afforded by genetic technology, the love of children must be primary in all decision-making. 'Children,' he urges, 'need commitments and covenants.' And we cannot assume that the marital covenant automatically reaches to children in our choice rich society. Not only are marriages fragile and in need of undergirding covenants; parenthood is equally and additionally demanding. Sociobiology may partly explain why fathers care, but it does not explain why fathers abandon and abuse. People must decide to be responsible; but with such a covenant, parenthood and personal self-fulfillment can be complimentary. Our love of children must be based not on inheritance myths or being made to our specifications, but on the dignity of their promise as citizens of the kingdom of God." -- Eric Mount, Jr. in Theology Today, April 1998

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 1st edition (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664254683
• ISBN-13: 978-0664254681
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,895,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Children are not commodities, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: For the Love of Children: Genetic Technology and the Future of the Family (Family, Religion, and Culture) (Paperback)

Reports on technical developments and ethical issues in the fields of genetics and reproduction are the subject of frequent news broadcasts and cultural commentary. In this book, systematic theologian Ted Peters addresses one of the most disturbing challenges facing both society and churches, namely, how to deal with the emerging possibilities for the control and management of human reproduction offered by the scientific advancements of modern biology and medicine. The end result is a proposal for a theology and ethics in genetics and reproduction that focuses on what is good for children.

Like so many Protestant theologians, Peters is led to consider Roman Catholic moral thought in these areas of medical ethics. His background as a systematic theologian allows him to make positive use of both Protestant and Catholic resources in constructing his argument. The gist of that argument is that new reproductive technologies risk making children into commodities--mere products of their parents' choices and financial wherewithal to realize them. The separation of the goals of parents from the good of their prospective children and the application of the measure of what is good for children in these crucial reproductive decisions are the foundation of Peters' proposal for ensuring that such procedures are taken for the love of children.

The subject of commodification and the new reproductives is as timely as it is compelling. One memorable news story not long ago focused on the decision of one couple to advertise for egg donors in the student newspaper at Yale University with the specification that the donor be 5'10" or more in height and have an SAT score of at least 1400. Amid the various doctors and ethicists commenting on the case was a Yale student editor who keenly appreciated the risk of commodification and the potentially devastating consequences for children bred to fulfill the dreams and desires of their parents. The issue of commodification also looms large in stories of the extravagant emotional and financial lengths that some would-be parents are willing to go in resorting to the new reproductive technologies to address the problem of infertility. What Peters offers us with this book is a constructive theological approach to these issues that is both realistic and hopeful.