BOB ABERNETHY: Now, Perspectives. We want to explore the religion and ethics events and issues of 1997 with three of the country's top religion reporters, Peter Steinfels of THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jeffrey Sheler of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, and Lynn Neary of National Public Radio. Welcome to you all. I want to get to the religious issues in a minute.But let's start with medical ethics, Peter, and the debates about assisted suicide and selective abortion of multiple fetuses and cloning. What's going on, and is there any way the ethicists possibly can keep up with this?
PETER STEINFELS (THE NEW YORK TIMES): Well, 1997 was certainly a big year for that area, both at the beginning of life and the end of life. I think in terms of physician-assisted suicide, the Supreme Court decision kept this issue alive and in the public arena, if you will, for debate, and the decision by the voters of Oregon to ratify their previous passing of a physician-assisted suicide law, also meant that at least at the state level, at the public level, this would be an ongoing issue.ABERNETHY: The Supreme Court said it's up to the states.
Mr. STEINFELS: The Supreme Court turned down two lower court decisions which would've in effect taken this out of the hands of the states.
ABERNETHY: What's your sense of how the thing is moving, how that debate is moving, Lynn?
LYNN NEARY (National Public Radio): Well, Bob, I think in terms of these kinds of issues, to me one sort of coherent ethical and theological way of looking at them is coming, I think, really from the Roman Catholic Church with this whole idea -- a phrase coined by Pope John Paul II -- "the culture of death." And an idea, the seamless garment, which I think Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago first used, and that is that life is protected from the moment of inception until death, and that would include something like euthanasia, that would explain why something like euthanasia is not accepted. It also then justifies why the death penalty is not accepted within the Roman Catholic Church. You're starting to hear that phrase, "the culture of death," being used by other religious leaders besides Roman Catholics, and that gives an overview -- an ethical way to look at it.JEFF SHELER (U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT): I think surprising the cloning issues, how really off guard the religious community was when that development occurred. Theologians and church leaders have, of course, been very much in touch with the issues involving conception and what it means to be human, these are very theological issues, but never really have they addressed the question of cloning, per se. It's interesting to note that all of the major religious traditions in different ways have really spoken negatively about cloning, their concerns about the impact on what it means to be human.
ABERNETHY: But it's going ahead pretty fast, isn't it?
Mr. STEINFELS: The interesting thing was that the first reaction in terms of human cloning was almost entirely negative, with even the people who had made the developments in Scotland about Dolly the cloned sheep and so on rejecting the idea of human cloning. And yet, as we see, it seems to be moving ahead. There seems to be almost no way in which people can put a brake on this.
ABERNETHY: Let me change the subject and go on to another one, persecution of people of faith around the world, especially Christians. A lot of Americans suddenly, it seems, kind of found out this year about how much of that's going on.
Ms. NEARY: It did seem to very quickly rise to the surface of public attention. Beginning in the latter half of this year, I think Abe Rosenthal of THE NEW YORK TIMES started writing a lot of editorials about it. That was one thing that helped, and then you had some very high-profile groups like the Christian Coalition getting behind the issue, ending with a very public declaration by the leaders of Congress, the Republican leaders of Congress, saying this was very high on their legislative list of priorities, although it did not in the end come to a vote before the end of this session of Congress. There are some controversial things about that, the fact that it began as a sort of Christian persecution, then they started using the larger phrase of "religious persecution," because I think particularly Muslims were upset that perhaps Muslims were being targeted. There is legislation that's pending, the Wolf-Specter bill, and that will probably come up for debate and vote next year.
Mr. SHELER: I think you're absolutely right. I think the major reason why this has risen so quickly is because of the lobbying, quite frankly, of some religious right groups. And yet, we're certainly not finished seeing this issue, but in this particular year, we have not seen a very effective result. The opposition to most favored nation status involving China, this was a very high issue in that debate, and yet it had no real noticeable effect.
Mr. SHELER: Well, I think there again, the issue of religious freedom is something that is very high on the minds of political leaders, court justices, and everyone else, but I think the important thing that came out of this decision and another major court decision that related to religion this past year, it really demonstrated that this particular Supreme Court is not ideologically driven on the question of separation of church and state. They're willing to look at issues as they arise. There is no apparent agenda to either raise or lower the barrier, and so the justices really seem content to leave the rest of us to wrestle with this very difficult issue, and perhaps that's as it should be.
