MEDIA RELEASE

Keeping a Nation up with Biotechnology

The Dean of Auckland’s Anglican Cathedral is urging the Government to reconsider its decision to discontinue its funding of the Bioethics Council.

Dean Ross Bay has written to the Minister for the Environment urging that the work of the Council be continued so that the public have a forum and a mechanism in which to form and support ethical views about the implications of advances in biotechnology.

“The speed at which biotechnologies are developing means that general public understanding is unable to keep up with new scientific learning. There needs to be a place for public deliberation before the onward rush of the application of that technology overwhelms us,” says Dean Bay.

“Advances in technology can relieve human suffering and contribute to human healing but this also involves ethical boundaries. I represent a Christian world-view on this matter but there are also implications for people of other faiths and cultures and we need a place to have a conversation regarding such topics,” says Dean Bay.

--

12 March 2009

The Hon Dr Nick Smith
Minister for the Environment
Parliament Buildings
Wellington

Dear Dr Smith

I was disturbed to learn this week of the Government’s decision to discontinue funding the Bioethics Council. I write to request that this decision be reconsidered, or an alternative mechanism for fulfilling the important work of the Council be found.

The speed at which biotechnologies are developing means that general public understanding is simply unable to keep up with new scientific learning. It is important that there is a mechanism for the people of our nation to be helped to form and support ethical views about the implications of these developments. This is a core part of the Bioethics Council’s brief.

I represent a Christian world-view on this matter, within which human life is seen as a sacred gift from God and one where the biological and spiritual can not be separated. People of other faiths will have their own views, as will Maori for whom these matters are extremely important. Likewise humanists, utilitarians, and libertarians will bring their own understandings, and so on. Within our morally diverse and morally fragmented society the pieces must get drawn together in order to allow a value to emerge that we might in some way be able to claim as one for Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The gravity that I think many people feel around issues of biotechnology provides communities with a window for public deliberation before the onward rush of the application of that technology overwhelms us. These may be the years when non-scientists and scientists together have a chance at determining the direction and limits of biotechnological advances.

Once again, I urge the continuation of the Bioethics Council or an effective alternative mechanism for fulfilling its mandate.

Yours sincerely

The Very Reverend Ross Bay
Dean

cc. Spokesperson for the Environment of other Parliamentary Parties

ENDS

© Scoop Media