Genetic Testing and the Garden of God

By revealing previously unimaginable knowledge about human bodies, genetic testing and data collection hold the potential to fall into a certain pattern of medicine that views patients as objects to control, resulting in an isolating approach to healthcare. This is a particularly harmful problem for already marginalized groups like those living with disabilities and communities of color. Christian anthropology’s understanding of the human person as relational, dependent, and creative illuminates an alternative framework for the purpose and employment of genetic testing. In particular, Alejandro García-Rivera’s imaginary of the garden illuminates a way that genetic technology can be limited according to human frailty and directed towards a flourishing rooted in the interdependent nature of human life. In short, genetic technology should be employed according to a view of human persons as interdependent, fragile, and relational to serve individual and collective flourishing rather than serve as isolating and controlling.