Biological Sciences & Sacred Theology

For many contemporary Christian theologians, evolutionary biology rules out any account of an Adam and Eve that would explain the origin of our species. In response, I propose that they have uncritically embraced the anti-essentialist presuppositions of the dominant scientific narrative for the origins of our kind. In fact, there are sound and robust reasons to think that human beings share an intrinsic essence that puts them into a natural kind. I also propose that our natural kind can be defined by our developmental capacity for language, which I suggest is needed for abstract thinking. Thus, it is still reasonable to trace the origins of our natural kind to an original individual. He would have been the first anatomically modern human to have evolved this capacity for hierarchical and non-linear language that allowed him to construct an abstract internal map of the world.

We propose that the use of early pre-term induction of labor to resolve crisis pregnancies,
even when the fetal child is too immature to survive outside the womb, is morally licit.
In our view, crisis pregnancies should best be understood as moral scenarios that involve
two persons of equal dignity whose lives have been put into grave risk because of their
physical proximity and the action of one who is putting both of their lives at risk. They
would be comparable to cases where the lives of an exhausted lifeguard and a drowning
swimmer she is attempting to save, have been put in peril because of their close proximity
and because of the panicked behavior of one. The early pre-term induction of labor in
crisis pregnancies is morally licit because this medical intervention is comparable to the
forcible separation of the drowning lifeguard and the drowning swimmer to save the life
of at least one of them.

Patrick Lee and Germain Grisez have argued that the total brain dead patient is still dead because the integrated entity that remains is not even an animal, not only because he is not sentient but also, and more importantly, because he has lost the radical capacity for sentience. In this essay, written from within and as a contribution to the Catholic philosophical tradition, I respond to Lee and Grisez’s argument by proposing that the brain dead patient is still
sentient because an animal with an intact but severed spinal cord can still perceive and respond to external stimuli. The brain dead patient is an unconscious sentient organism.

In recent years, there has been increasing evidence that the totally brain-dead patient is able to continue to live and to maintain some integrated functions, albeit with the necessary assistance of mechanical ventilation. Several years ago, the autopsy report of a totally brain-dead patient named TK who was kept on life support for nearly twenty years was published in the Journal of Child Neurology. He
remains the individual kept on life support the longest after suffering total brain failure. In this essay, I argue that the clinical data described in the autopsy report demonstrate that TK’s long-term survival after total brain failure supports the claim acknowledged by the President’s Council on Bioethics that the brain-dead patient retains his bodily integrity. As such, he is not dead. He is still a living, though severely disabled, human organism, a human person made in the image and likeness of God.

How should we morally evaluate protocols to edit the human genome? In this essay, the author argues that the therapy–enhancement distinction
commonly used in debates over genetic engineering is not a robust one. Using the example of lipid-lowering pharmacological interventions, he argues that a strong case can be made for the morality of therapeutic enhancements that blur the distinction between therapy and enhancement. He proposes, therefore, that the therapy–enhancement distinction should be replaced by a therapy–nontherapy distinction that acknowledges that some beneficial and morally acceptable therapies are enhancements. However, the benefits–burdens distinction should also be deployed, as it commonly is with other technologies that affect the human person, alongside the therapy–nontherapy distinction, to judge whether a particular technological intervention to edit an individual’s genome should be permitted or not. Gene editing to make patients healthier than healthy should be allowed.

In his encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, Pope Francis proposes that the natural moral law can be reimagined as an ecological moral law that challenges us to evaluate the morality of our actions not only within
our personal and nonpersonal relationships in society but also within the greater reality that is creation. In this essay, the author offers several reflections on the ramifications of this innovative proposal on a contemporary Catholic bioethics that seeks to be faithful to the classical moral tradition.

In our postmodern, secular, and liberal society, many individuals are struggling with a crisis of meaningful desire. In response, the goal of preaching Catholic bioethics should be to help people to order their desires so that they are all oriented toward their authentic good. This is done by infusing their intellects with truth and by exhorting them to order their appetites and emotions with virtue. Specifically, preachers should speak about bioethics in a way that shows our brothers and sisters that the moral truths of the Gospel will help them to find joy. However, it is not enough to speak about joy. One should never speak about these controversial and deeply personal issues without also speaking about the mercy of God.

Several empirical studies suggest that recreational marijuana is popularly perceived as an essentially
harmless rite of passage that ends as young people settle into their careers and their adult intimate
relationships. Is this perception accurate? To answer this question, we evaluate the morality of recreational
marijuana use from a virtue perspective guided by the theological synthesis of St. Thomas
Aquinas. Since the medical data reveals that recreational marijuana use is detrimental to the well-being
of the user, we conclude that it is a vicious activity, an instance of the vice of intoxication, and as such
would be morally illicit.

In this essay, some of the signatories to “Medical Intervention in Cases of Maternal–Fetal Vital Conflicts: A Statement of Consensus” respond to “The Placenta as an Organ of the Fetus: A Response to the Statement of
Consensus on Maternal–Fetal Conflict,” both recently published in this journal. The response examines Bringman and Shabanowitz’s claims and assumptions about the morally relevant pathologic condition in some cases of peripartum cardiomyopathy complicated by a subsequent pregnancy, the moral status of a normally functioning placenta, and the use of the principle of double effect
in these cases. The signatories’ response sets out to demonstrate how Bringman and Shabanowitz do not engage the essential points of the statement of
consensus and how their argument is premised on false assumptions.

Human cell lines are well-characterized laboratory cultures of human cells derived from a single source. In recent years, much moral controversy has surrounded human cell lines and biological materials obtained from aborted fetuses and destructive human embryo research. Dignitas
personae instructs scientists of good conscience to avoid using biological materials of illicit origin, to distance
themselves from evil, and to avoid scandal. The author suggests that the Instruction allows a scientist to delay
discontinuing the use of a morally controversial cell line
for a reasonable amount of time and allows a citizen of conscience to financially support—in a limited and restricted manner governed by prudence—philanthropic
organizations that fund controversial biomedical research programs.

To resolve questions regarding ovarian tissue transplantation, the author proposes a metaphysical theory positing that the common ensoulment shared by all the cells in a woman’s body is manifested primarily in her immune system’s ability to distinguish her own cells
from those of another. The author therefore suggests that human procreation, to be morally licit, has to involve the giving of one’s gametes, defined, not by their genetic constitution, but by their being part of the immunologically defined self given in the mutual self-gift that is conjugal love.

Background: Saccharomyces boulardii is a probiotic yeast routinely used to prevent and to treat gastrointestinal
disorders, including the antibiotic-associated diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile infections. However, only 1-3% of the yeast administered orally is recovered alive in the feces suggesting that this yeast is unable to survive the
acidic environment of the gastrointestinal tract.
Results: We provide evidence that suggests that S. boulardii undergoes programmed cell death (PCD) in acidic
environments, which is accompanied by the generation of reactive oxygen species and the appearance of caspaselike
activity. To better understand the mechanism of cell death at the molecular level, we generated microarray
gene expression profiles of S. boulardii cells cultured in an acidic environment. Significantly, functional annotation
revealed that the up-regulated genes were significantly over-represented in cell death pathways Finally, we show
that S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet), a commercially available, FDA-approved dietary supplement, enhances the
viability of S. boulardii in acidic environments, most likely by preventing programmed cell death.
Conclusions: In toto, given the observation that many of the proven health benefits of S. boulardii are dependent
on cell viability, our data suggests that taking S. boulardii and AdoMet together may be a more effective treatment
for gastrointestinal disorders than taking the probiotic yeast alone.