16 - Life Patents, Religion, and Justice: A Summary of Themes

Summary

This closing chapter summarizes the book’s themes. By gathering religious, secular moral, legal, and sociopolitical perspectives in one place, the book aims to be a resource so lawyers, policy activists, and policymakers in patent debates might better understand what religious perspectives have to offer, and so religious thinkers and leaders might better understand biotech patents and thus have more to offer. Three themes emerge from the balance of the chapters. First, patents on life call for evaluation under criteria of morality and social justice. Second, religious thought can contribute to–not dominate, but contribute to–such moral and social evaluation. Finally, however, for religious thought to contribute effectively, it must be better informed and sophisticated than it has been, about both patent law and biotechnology.