The Recent History of Christian Bioethics Critically Reassessed

Abstract

Many have regarded the 1970’s, rich as they were with the works of such as Paul Ramsey and Richard McCormick, as the golden age of bioethics. As Stanley Hauerwas has pointed out, the claim is false. This article argues that Ramsey and others, by creating a Christian bioethics that was not founded in Christ and in distinctly Christian commitments, contributed to the auto-demolition of Christian bioethics. After all, if Christian bioethics contributed to bioethical reflection only what a good secular bioethics can offer, why bother. However, now a distinctly Christian bioethics is growing.