The following article deals with topics that are subject to significant prejudice, kneejerk reaction, phobia and superstition. So read it closely before you go on a rant.
Let’s draw a line in the sand – on one iside wrong, and on the other side right. Let’s not get too deeply into utilitarianism or morality – let’s just apply the golden rule, and see where at least I found myself.
In the article I interchange “genetic modification” and “selfalteration” freely, largely because I think they are ‘morally equivalent’.
In the past we had a societal stratum on both sides of the political spectrum (both far right fascist and far left communist) that had a personal urge to loathe “the lesser off in society” and wanted to have less of those; i.e. make sure that people with glaring genetic defects, low intelligence, a tendency towards this or that ‘abnormal’ sexual behavior, generational predisposition to crime or unemployability,consistently ugly people,or people with neurological issues did not breed. These authoritarian elites proposed the use of what they regarded as “gentle but necessary force” – the last people fitting the bill would were sterilized as late as the 1970s in the United States. Obviously there were less charitable examples of this ideology, in the mid 20th century germany and russia.
Let’s say clear, I am against that, vehemently.
Genetic pressure on humans is nothing new. It has never much been institutional, but it occurred everywhere. A certain class of “somewhat more intelligent” people saw what you could do with cattle and desired to do the same with other humans. Kings took the right to bed women immediately after marriage, as so eloquently depicted in the movie braveheart, with the misguided goal to raise offspring with genetic features they wanted, and push our those they didn’t want. But even far back in Rome there was state-sponsored pressure to have children of succesful gladiators with the explicit goal of introducing “a more worthy class of citizens” in the main population.
This spectre has always been with us. I have the personal pet theory that humanity itself has bred itself, semi-intentionally mostly, in a certain direction. If I were to explain the urgency of some people in the greater population to bow down to some sort of deity, my first (difficult to falsify) explanation would be to assert that humanity has been ruthlessly bred over several millenia (attrition of over 50% of the main population in some cases) to favor middle class values, draconian submissiveness to patriarchal rulers and potentates, an endemic compulsion to exclude, persecute or exterminate people with even the smallest difference in genes or culture and a sickening eagerness to selfsacrifice for all but frivolous societal causes. It goes even as far as to find arguments for the idea that western european humanity has been bred for capitalism, based on the conclusion that most ‘lower class’ human beings in the middle ages didn’t get a chance to convey their genes. In western Europe allmost all humans are descendants of city folk.
Yah, I do think humans are tame apes. Dronified bald erect walking, tool using, talking chimpansees – vectored to obey autocratic rulers, culminating these existential terrors into ‘god-ism’ and frustrated types of behavior I would otherwise associate with a miserably overbred domesticated species.
So as for how deep my bile runs for use of force and forced breeding, selection, excluding whole demographics from conveying genes, ocstracism and genocide, I can not emphasize enough my deep hatred for that part of existence.
What I do favor is health. Let’s just start by saying, if I were to consistently apply my own standards on what is an acceptable human life, I should have kindly asked ‘the parents of my physical form’ (1) not to breed. My father had a series of severe personality disorders. There was a line of schizofrenia and severe ADHD, narcism and violent alcoholism in his lineage. His mother was hospitalized as a schizofrenic most of her life. His father, my grandfather, was a consistently selfcentered bastard, what I heard of him, and he had very few scruples. On my mothers side has been a long line of severe pathological pain disorders, sudden onset senility and autism, severe anxiety disorders and rather odd responses to medication. As a result I am pretty sure I have personality traits that are squarely in the definitions of ADHD, post traumatic stress, anomic personality disorder, a pathological tendency to change my mind. I have frequent migraines and the occasional cluster headache so bad I lie on the ground screaming and retching for hours. I respond very badly to stress, and I have the worst SAD in town. Worse, I have something akin to narcolepsia, especially when I get bored or stressed, and need at least 9 hours of sleep a day, more if I had a stressful day. And my memory is onesided and selective.
This whinefest is by and large the result of distinct genetic factors. Had I been an adopted child from ‘healthy’ parents, raised by the same pathological parents, no doubt I would have had problems but surely I wouldn’t have had the train of neurological disorders I have now, and I would probably have been able to hold a job, generate a decent income and live a far better quality of life. This I can not, not by a long shot, and believe me, I have tried again and again.
Soeciety we live uses a simple rule – everyone gets equal opportunities, and (based on free will and a skewed notion of fair play) if you fail, it is “your own fault”. This is a curious notion in a society where at one point we have accepted that bodily disability merits a disability pension, but if someone has the bodily disability of “being lazy” it does not. The mere fac of falsifiability plays a large role. Democracy and the ability to tolerate collective sacrifice plays another role. Nevertheless a large portion of society has qualities that may seem frivolous, but make a significant difference, either way.
Here is where it gets politically incorrect.
Pretty soon we will enter an era where it is simple, affordable, about as safe as the natural alternative – to apply precise genetic alterations to the genome of a human and create offspring that have qualities the parents didnt have, and may not have deficiencies the parents had, or were carrier to. These changes would treatment of sperm, ova or fertillized egg, possibly by zygote selection, possibly by in vitro genetic modification, possibly by selectively targeting gene expression.
Pretty soon, and I am talking a decade or so, technology will be able to make sweeping and fundamental changes to the genetic qualities of our lifestock, and as soon as these treatments will have been made “multi-generationally” safe, fast, repeatable, predictable, affordable and noninvasive, there should be not reason the same treatments (and I use my words cautiously here) ’should not be made accessible’ to whomever human wants to apply them to his or her own offspring.
Local law will have several reasons to disallow these techniques. I can imagine that a fiercely catholic Poland will object to these treatments, for reasons that are largely a historic artifact. Many other countries will have complex political compromizes, a general feeling of “queasyness” and assorted other (often equally random) reasons to object. But what if one country will implement these treatments, on a massive scale? First country I think off applying a nationwide genetic screening program, including in vitro fertillization of every single citizen, selection of known genetic carriers for “deficiency’ (by whatever definition dujour one cares to come up with), “desirable qualities” or (and it gets really icky here) “potential avenues of enhancement”, would of course be China. In the words of Strangelove, “can we afford a mineshaft gap” – the question is – how will US elected officials respond when a single year of nationwide genetic screening in China produces a visible and compelling (and cost-efficient) drop in humans born with birth defects and genetic afflictions. What if that generation universally tests as several points higher on IQ aptitude tests (yes I know it is a crude testing mechanism) and has virtually no bad teeth, asthma, blood diseases, markedly lower cancer rates, bone deformities, uglyness, male baldness, color-blindness, short life expectancy, congenial heart defects (the list goes on for a long time). What if that year the number of Chinese born that required lifelong care, such as people with DOWN syndrome, dropped to onehundred the societal norm elsewhere.
I predict, with a steel expression, within years other countries would follow the example and offer their citizens the same.
So, step two, lets get even more politically incorrect. Lets start my making the following gruelling statements.
A parent who finds his or her child has a genetic abnormality that, if not treated with a key vitamin during pregnancy, would make the child be born with an IQ 20 points lower, and who does not apply this treatment, is guilty of severe parental abuse. A parent has a moral obligation, and should have a legal obligation to so whatever is affordable and easy, to make sure a child is born with full faculties.
A parent who purposefully selects the genes or zygote characteristyics of a child to conform to a constrictive standard, is guilty of a crime. I am saying, my democratic vote (no more, no less) goes to society regarding this type of behavior as severe child abuse.
If in a specific year a child is conceived genetic technology or pharmaceutical treatments were available that could have prevented a specific heredetary disease in a child, of which the parents could have made themselves aware and had the means and access to apply – and the parents willfully didn’t – it is my vote in a democratic society, that these parents should be held accountable to child neglect.
But I can drive it a notch higher.
Even though as a society it is my opinion we should care for all people when they need care, insurance companies might choose to provide reimbursement and payments when there is reason to know in advance a human being will need lifelong care. In such countries where this is (voted to be) legal an insurer may let the parents know – if you do not test for genetic abnormalities the insurance for the child is 25% higher, to offset increased risk of us having to pay coverage. We pay for any tests. If you do test, and an abnormality is found, we reimburse the abortion cost, and we pay for genetic screening (or genetic modification). If you intentionally choose to give birth to a child knowing it is likely to be born with severe treatment-requiring disability, we will not accept said infant in our medical insurance coverage – when paying the bills caring for (say) someone with paralyzed legs, you are on your own.
Would that be fair? If a sound democraticly elected government implements laws that allow this, then yes, it would be. It might not be prudent, it might be cruel in many cases, but I do see something like that happening very fast.
I do not think (and I may be mistaken) any person with a distinct disability would choose to keep the disability if simple treatment were available. I do not think ugly humans (and the slippery slope turns into an abyss here) would stay ugly if a 3 day, robust treatment changing them from this into this were safe, painless, available and affordable. There are steep societal and personal costs to deficiencies, even if the conceptions of these deficiencies are cruel, ill-defined, mutable, stupid, conceited, self-serving, machiavellan, backward, prejudicial, monumentally selfdefeating. Societal exclusion or prejudice can be a worse torture than deficiency itself, trust me on that. I will laud those societies that care for their infirm, educate their citizens on prejudice, compensate for incapacity, care for the suffering or vulnerable, with every fiber of my being. But I simply laud a society which does that, AND has the capacity to freely offer any of its subjects the means to physically alter itself “to function better“, or be plain happier.
I know there are no easy solutions, and I know corporations will be getting ready to make zillions, and I know people make stupid choices, or subcultures will isolate themselves, and I know there is reason for caution at every step, but the alternative I do not like, which is people having absolutely no choice, when it comes to changing themselves after birth, caring for the wellbeing off their offspring.
The next step in this discussion (insofar there is a discussion at all!) is asking if people can be allowed to selfmodify, or modify their offspring.
A society which condones the application of genetic treatments, genetic screening, genetic modification, of unborn children, should levvy a tax to offset any future risk for the children being born as a result of these treatments, or their immediate offspring, developing unexpected side effects or deficiencies.
To these newly emerging technologies or options there are four basic attitudes; “no, never”, “no, unless”, “yes, but” and “yes”. I lean heavily towards yes, for clear personal reasons. If it is blankly disallowed you create a new (and unaccountable) black market, a new crime, a new prohibition, a new indiscrimate tool for governmental repression (giving a law to a government is like giving a leather belt to a wifebeater) and people ending up in prison for plain silly reasons. Worse, the rich who want their offspring to “have the best chances in life” may worsen a societal disparity between haves (and cans) and havenots (or can’ts) to the point of gattacism.
I think it is crucially important to have these technological developments remain in the limelight, and be as accessible as possible, within fair margins of safety. You want poor and rich alike to have access to selfmodification, you want these treatments to be as safe as possible, and you want them mass-production cheap. In all cases you want to be able to outlaw, ‘hold a societal discourse on’ and persecute excesses to the max, but you’d also have to accomodate and respect consumer freedoms, parental rights, experimentation, alternative lifestyle, personal freedom.
Right now there is a strong fear, prejudice, suspicion and queasyness on the practical side of these topics. Only the kind of parents “that so desperately want a child” (you know the type) are societally urged (or reimbursed) to use these technologies, because there is room for empathy. But the time these technologies are safe as a flu shot (…), casual as dentistry, cheap as a boob job and fast as a whinehouse rehab is not far off.
So my position on the free availability of genetic treatments of unborn people is clear – I am overwhelmingly on allowing it, and making sure we do not have disasters because we do not, or as a result of when we do. People who do it should be accountable for frivolous or impulsive choices, governments should set stict and transparant and democratic rules and standards, but freedom should reign, even in cases where such modifications move beyond the realm of treating ‘disability’, or into the real of self-augmentation.
So, I’d love to hear what people think about it, but I will not respond to dythirambic, orotund, obtuse, insulting, overly florid, overly prejudiced, overly xenophobe or highly politicized rants, if and should they occur. Be polite, entertaining and understandable please.
(1) I am two things – a body with certain predispositions, and a mind, which often goes squarely against the urges that reside in that body. I am Khannea Suntzu, and I am self-defined, self-formulated aspect of the body I inhabit, and the psyche that is normally in control of that mind.
