whither ethics?

There's something very attractive about moral absolutes. We like to say that they are biblical. Maybe some are. But sometimes they seem just to be an avoidance of the real complexities of life, of the inherent ambiguity in some situations, and the downright confusing pace of medical advances.

Two such hard cases arose recently: firstly, the heartbreaking case of baby OT, whose parents wanted kept alive, and whose doctors said that it was kinder to cease the interventions keeping the child alive. In other contexts, perhaps the latter would have been confused with issues of cost, but the provision of the British Health Service meant that both parties could concentrate on what they thought best for baby OT. We'd probably agree that there are times when it's best to stop invasively striving to keep someone alive - but it's hard to come to that conclusion when you are close to the situation.

Secondly, there have been calls lately for an end to the criminalization of helping someone to commit suicide - at least in the context of facilitating travel to the so-called Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Those cases are so hard: it's difficult to want to stop someone from deciding to end their own suffering, but it's near impossible too to address the danger of unwanted, subtle, unwitting even, pressure being applied to someone in a vulnerable state. For myself, I think the law has it about right at the moment: helping someone to die is illegal, but most people escape prosecution. I'd rather each case be considered on its merits, with a legal presumption that driving someone to their grave (almost literally!) is generally illegal.

And then there are increasingly complex issues which arise from in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, frozen embryos, and so, so many more. Not only does black and white thinking fail to lead to obviously ethical answers, it certainly does not give helpful advice to people who find themselves in complex situations. [When a couple created some frozen embryos, and then split, if the man withdraws consent for their implantation, what happens next? Does it matter if the woman is now infertile? For example. Or what if you consented to the creation of hundreds of embryos, but subsequently decide that the destruction of the surplus ones is unethical? And so on.]

In these hard issues - particularly at the beginning and end of life - it strikes me that we need a new ethic. One that values the image of the creator found in each person - old or young. One that takes account of the immense pain felt by people who find themselves in hard places. One that can celebrate advances in medical science, rather than finding each one a challenge and an evil to be resisted.

I wouldn't pretend that this is easy. But we are faced by a lot of questions that a previous generation was not. And they will continue to get more and more complex. Reducing them to simpler questions will make them easier to answer, but I truly doubt that doing so will really give satisfactory answers, answers that embody love and compassion, answers that meet people where they are, answers that really embody Kingdom values.