One of the of the unrecognized declines last century has been in moral intelligence. Chemical gases, global genocides, conflict rapes, serial and single murders, environmental destruction and poisoning, the sharp curtailment of civil liberties and democracies, global economic bubbles, the cover-up of harmful effects of dangerous drugs, experiments without permission on human subjects, sterilizations, the squalid abortions of Dr. Kermit Gosnell are images that undercut the mind and heart.
For moral intelligence we need not only firewalls and institutional protections against the forces of science and evil, but an inner understanding and recognition within ourselves. That absence seems to be the growing threat.
When a Virginia politician calls a pregnant woman a “host” and places the idea of mother on the periphery of gestation, moral intelligence is misrepresented to attack the family. But a Columbia University professor notes 1175 gene patents were granted between 1985 and 1991 (not all human!).
We have no structures in place for the debate and exercise of authority on issues of moral intelligence. Neither the law or medical guidelines are adequate; profit nor purpose should bind us.
In the cases of fertilization and changes in genetic birth material, information should be uniform and perhaps decisions should be individual, as a place to begin. Closely watched, let science proceed.
Black History 360* 