Bioethics-Name Calling

Welcome to Every Thought Captive. I’m Phil Steiger.

One way to win an argument is to label your opponent as something undesirable and then declare yourself the winner by virtue of the fact that you are not undesirable. This happens a lot in our culture, and it is happening right now with the cloning debate. Several European countries have banned cloning and the U.N. has recently done the same. But in the U.S., we have not.

We haven’t banned cloning primarily because of the way the debate is framed. People opposed to cloning are labeled as radically religious pro-life supporters who do not belong in public. In this way, the real issues of human personhood and human rights are obscured by simple name-calling. In engaging our culture on these issues, we cannot be dissuaded by this kind of thing. We must press through to the real issues at hand, and be willing to be labeled as undesirable from time to time.

This has been Every Thought Captive. I’m Phil Steiger, pastor at Quail Lake Community Church, and Director for Dayspring Center for Christian Studies. For more information, please visit everythoughtcaptive.org.