Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 157: Promethean Medical Temptations

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Superheroes attract us. From Greek gods to Superman and Spi­der­man, our fascination with the awe­some deeds of superheroes beck­ons us to become Masters of our own destiny. Yet even as we en­joy the fantasy of acquiring Prome­thean powers to combat our ene­mies and conquer evil, we have le­gitimate misgiv­ings about mere mortals tak­ing on god-like powers in real life. We are concerned about those who play with fire just like Prometheus did, at the risk of harm and great destruc­tion. Today, as modern medi­cine tries to rebuff death and control our humanity in ever more sophisti­cated ways, new temptations arise that challenge us to choose between life and death, between living in real­ity and living in a fantasy world where we elevate ourselves as “Mas­ters of our own destiny.”

We encounter these Prome­thean temptations today in the ex­pand­ing fields of reproductive medi­cine and infertility. We may be drawn to the idea of “manufactur­ing” children through in vitro fertili­za­tion and related forms of as­sisted reproductive technologies.  By pro­duc­ing and manipulating our chil­dren in laboratory glassware, how­ever, we cross a critical line and sever our obedience to the Giver of life. We assume the role of Masters over, rather than recipients of, our own offspring. We allow our chil­dren to be mistreated as so many embry­onic tokens — with some be­ing frozen in liquid nitro­gen and oth­ers being discarded as biomedi­cal waste. We take on the seem­ingly divine role of creating an­other human being and reign­ing su­preme over his or her des­tiny. 

We are tempted toward this same type of Promethean mastery at the other end of life. While we recog­nize that we cannot avoid death, we may be troubled and vexed by the possibility of a pro­tracted and painful dying process. We may decide that the best an­swer is to “take charge” of the situa­tion and move into the driver’s seat, resolutely calling the fi­nal shots ourselves. By ending life “on our own terms” through physi­cian-assisted suicide, we hope to steer around the suffer­ings and agonies of the dying pro­cess. Yet suicide clearly goes against the grain of the kind of crea­tures we are, creatures in­tended for life, not death.

The temptation that flashes be­fore us when we consider sui­cide is the fantasy of becoming “Mas­ter” over our destiny by ar­rogat­ing to ourselves direct power over life and death. We begin to accept the falsehood that we are uniquely in charge of our own des­tiny, and can remake or de­stroy our­selves as if we were gods. It is but a short step, then, for us to take fur­ther powers unto ourselves, lording it over the fate and destiny of others through activities like euthanasia, di­rect abor­tion, and human embryonic stem cell research.

Although we are creatures in­tended for life, we may not be en­tirely clear about how we came to possess that life. We sense how we have been cast headlong into exis­tence without ask­ing for it, and we know, with cer­tainty, that we did not create ourselves or have any role in bringing ourselves into being. The fact that we were cre­ated entirely apart from our own will means that our existence has been intention­ally chosen by Another. The good­ness and beauty of our life has been inde­pendently conferred on us by One who has radically willed our per­sonal existence. Because that exist­ence is good and beautiful, it ought al­ways to be treated as such, and never di­rectly violated.

The goodness and beauty of the hu­man life we have received is also con­nected to the gift of our masculin­ity or femininity. Yet here we also face the temptation of Pro­methean mas­tery as we imagine we can become the oppo­site sex, or that we needn’t be ei­ther male or female, but can be any of doz­ens of different “gender identi­ties.” We engage in the fantasy that our embodied nature is fluid and mallea­ble, and that we can vanquish our birth sex, remaking our­selves through the gender bending powers of medi­cine and science. But the damage that this fantasy can wreak in a short space of time — the hormones, the surger­ies, the irre­versible decisions and mutilated bodies — is not trivial. The lives of many thousands of individu­als, con­vinced they have be­come Masters of their own identities, have already been irretrievably altered or ruined, often with the assistance of other medical or political Masters.

The ever-expanding powers of biomedi­cine call us to careful ethical reflec­tion and discernment, so we do not fall prey to the temptation of see­ing ourselves as Masters, rather than collabora­tors with God, our inaliena­ble Source of life and being.

Copyright © 2020, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, Philadelphia, PA. All rights reserved.

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