Beyond embryonic politics, Simon Barrow, 26 Mar 08, on OurKingdom - an OpenDemocracy project. See also this on Networking democracy.
"All Christians, and all people of good will, want to revere and develop life. Whether ongoing decisions in [the] area [of the biosciences] can be taken by an appeal to human preference alone, framed purely by the language of rights and without a broader sense of ethical possibilities and restraints, is a fraught and contested question. Whether one answer to such questions is possible, framed independently of any particular tradition of moral reasoning, is even more tricky. Secular liberal ethics is in as much difficulty here as religiously grounded ethics, probably more so.
"But moral progress, in concert with the proper encouragement and regulation of scientific endeavour (together with its protection from voracious commercial interests), will not be made by shouting, seeking to pull rank, political manipulation or throwing the weight of our different lobby groups - religious or otherwise - around. We need to develop less confrontational political mechanisms and more serious civic ones to keep the conversation going." More here.
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