This week’s BreakPoint Podcast highlights how expressive individualism is prominent inside bioethics, leading to a rewriting of parental and end-of-life care. John Stonestreet invites O. Carter Snead to discuss Snead’s new book, What it Means to Be Human.

O. Carter Snead is the William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. He is a law professor and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Snead and John start by discussing anthropology as an account of what it means to be human and what human flourishing looks like. Snead argues for building a renewed vision of human progress apart from our culture’s expressive individualism. He argues for building public policies that engage and protect those human beings who may be on life sustaining measures and have lost the legal ability to stand for themselves.

Quoting Dr. Gerald Schatten saying, “Reproductive medicine is helping prospective parents to realize their own dreams for a disease-free legacy,” Snead highlights how expressive individualism is overriding the case for the body in bioethics.