Christian ethic prevails in law banning human patents

Excerpted from "U.S. makes embryo patenting ban permanent," Baptist Press News. September 21, 2011--The United States now has a permanent ban on issuing patents on human embryos. President Obama signed the prohibition into law Sept. 16 as part of a patent reform measure titled the America Invents Act. The pro-life language in the bill restricts the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from issuing a patent on a "human organism."
The new law makes permanent a ban on embryo patenting that has been approved each year since 2004 as part of the annual spending bill for the Commerce, Justice and State departments. The original bill, sponsored by former Rep. Dave Weldon, R.-Fla., met strong opposition at the time from the biotechnology industry, which sought the ability to patent human beings created by cloning or other methods.
Pro-life advocates who had backed inclusion of the ban in the patent reform measure applauded the newly enacted prohibition.

Jonathan Imbody, CMDA Vice President for Government Relations: "In God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis explained the battle over two distinct worldviews that often clash in our culture (and in Congress):

"[W]here the Materialist would simply ask about a proposed action, 'Will it increase the happiness of the majority?', the Christian might have to say, 'Even if it does increase the happiness of the majority, we can’t do it. It is unjust.'
"The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can’t both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn’t fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction."

"The new patent reform law nails down an important ethical principle consistent with the Christian worldview--that human beings at any stage of development are not patentable subject matter.
"Since 1987, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) maintained an internal policy consistent with this stance, but some researchers less concerned about the ethics of experimenting with human organisms wanted to get around that policy.
"Some researchers, for example, aimed at patenting and marketing human embryos with certain genetic profiles as 'models' for studying inheritable diseases. In 2001, the University of Missouri at Columbia requested and actually received a patent on a method for producing cloned mammals--a patented method that failed to exclude humans.
"An amendment offered in Congress in 2004 by Florida pro-life physician Rep. Dave Weldon temporarily protected the USPTO policy but required approval by Congress each year, as an appropriations bill rider. Making the Weldon amendment permanent law now legally bans the exploitation of human beings at any stage of development for patent licensing and financial gain.
"In this provision of the new patent law, the Christian ethic prevails over the utilitarian, materialist ethic--a battle which Lewis explains thus:

"To the Materialist things like nations, classes, civilizations must be more important than individuals, because the individuals live only seventy odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day."

Resources
CMDA Letter to Congress
Stem Cell Research Lacks Basic Ethics