Book
Miller, Roman J., Beryl H. Brubaker, and James C. Peterson, eds. Viewing New Creations with Anabaptist Eyes: Ethics of Biotechnology. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2005.
Reviewer
Ray Epp, Menno Village, Hokkaido, Japan
Since social location shapes perspective, some personal disclosure is in order. I am a farmer growing 35 varieties of vegetables, rice, wheat, and soybeans for 65 families and selected markets at a farm called Menno Village in Hokkaido, Japan. I am also a leader in the Menno Village Church community and have been involved in public policy discussions on biotechnology in Japan for seven years. Japan has a four-thousand-year history of agriculture, so I am familiar with the complexities of traditional agriculture and how it differs from the monocultures of North American agriculture. I am also a seminary student dealing with biotechnology for thesis work in Peace Studies.
This volume offers papers from a conference held at Eastern Mennonite University in 2005. The first part lays out the foundations of medical and agricultural biotechnology. The second outlines differing perspectives on biotechnology, and the third provides a critique and synthesis of the conference presentations.
The book’s strength is its multi-disciplinary treatment of biotechnology. Twenty-two speakers represented 14 different disciplines ranging from theology, ethics, and philosophy to the sciences, public policy, history, medicine, social work, and agriculture. The editors helpfully include photos and short biographies of the speakers, but I wish the biographies would outline what industry organizations and lobbying bodies the speakers were part of, and how much of their income comes from the biotech industry. (There appears to be a high correlation between favorable views and financial benefit.) Two chapters are dedicated to questions and responses. Joseph Kotva, Jr. and Stanley Hauerwas provide excellent analysis and rhetorical responses to the worldviews represented at the conference.
The “Anabaptist eyes” are virtually all North American. In the third world, around 80 percent of the people are farmers; what do they think of biotechnology? Also, very little attention is given to the politics of biotechnology. Those who do raise this issue are from outside the US: Kabiru Kinyanjui from Kenya, Conrad Brunk from Canada.
All of us are involved in the process of ‘world making.’ Good intent is not an adequate measure of ethical behavior. Who we belong to and the beliefs we hold shape character and literally create a world. Why is biotechnology so important? John Gearhart “believes” in his work, and government funding and policy supporting biotechnology is critical (33). Why? “A lot of intellectual property is to be gained” (33). Is this the kind of world we want to create? Who will own the world? Who will decide how life as patented commodity will be used? He assumes that we can control and manage the science (34); but as Brunk points out, many instances produce unintended and unforeseen consequences (111).
Emerson Nafziger, an agriculture scientist, believes opposition to bio-engineered grains is unethical: “Given the evidence that [biotechnology is] no threat to the environment or to consumers, opposition to them seems to be paternalistic and unethical” (212). Graydon Snyder, a theologian, writes, “The rejection of genetically altered grains by Europe seems like the sin of political pride” (220). Has anyone asked third world farmers why they do not want biotechnology? Kabiru Kinyanju says, “Biotechnology is driven in the U.S. by the profit motive, which in my African context distorts our ability to feed ourselves and to deal with hunger on the continent…. The technology will not rid us of hunger and poverty” (168, 169).
Biotechnology is a solution in search of a problem, much like “atoms for peace.” No one bothers asking if there are other ways of answering the problems we are facing without resorting to biotechnology.
Conrad Brunk shows how traditional ethical frameworks are inadequate when confronting biotechnology, where we are dealing with living organisms and uncertainties making it imperative to exercise precaution. There is no recalling genetic modifications once they have been done. I resonate with his warning to North American Mennonites that the unconditional commitment to helping feed the hungry and to promote health may blind us to the ideological commitments of biotechnology (258). Brunk invites us to consider that biotechnology is essentially an issue of power and control.
This book will be helpful for people who want to understand Anabaptist/Mennonite deliberations on biotechnology in North America. It is not the whole story, as many other voices “from below” need to be heard. The shape of our legal system, research priorities, and political and economic ideologies shape North American perceptions. Over 50 percent of the world’s genetically modified crops are grown in the U.S. Are bio-engineered seeds a new form of feudalism? U.S. corporations control over 90 percent of the genetically modified crops grown in the world, and 80 percent of farmers in the world still save their own seeds. Are third world farmers justified in their political skepticism of patented seeds?
Genetic modification cannot be separated from the legal constructs of intellectual property law and the logic of the marketplace. Biotechnology and the ideological constructs that have led to its creation must be critically engaged to keep it from becoming an idolatrous power. It will be one of the most important peace issues in the twenty-first Century.