opencopy.org

- Teich, Ch. 19-21 -

Introduction

Technology recently moved into a completely new phase with the possibility of genetic engineering. Formerly, technology meant the development of machineries and technologies. While these, particularly when connected to bureaucratic efficiency and capitalist production, could involve the control of human beings, these technologies did not imply the creation of human beings according to specifications. The technocratic mentality, when applied to the creation of human children, in particular, can be viewed as profoundly dehumanizing.

In this lecture, I want to talk about 3 writers who look at genetics in different ways. Weinberg, a professor of biology, shows us how genetic mapping works and provides us with some of the basic dilemmas for ethics. Charo shows us how the genetic revolution implies the need for a serious rethinking of the genetic and contractual models of the family. Kass makes an impassioned but philosophical case against genetic cloning. Taken together, all of these articles suggest that, when technology moves into the terrain of human nature, it poses problems that we have to deal with.

Weinberg: ‘The Dark Side of the Genome’

The genome project, which was recently completed, was an attempt to map out the sequence of characters in human DNA. It is important to remember that this does not mean that we understand how most genes work. Some genes are so complex as to involve 2 million bases and the cost of exploring these means that it will be a long time until we understand the connections between the all the genes and human traits, if indeed we will ever know this.

But sequencing does indicate the polymorphisms, segments or dividing lines within which genes operate. It is now possible for scientists to begin to look for the connections between some genes and some traits, with the possibility of screening for undesired states or manipulating the genes in some way to make them act differently. In the case of disease, the importance of being able to screen and change is rather obvious.

That’s not the problem. The real problem lies in the fact it will become increasingly possible to screen fetuses and humans for particular traits that may or may not involve disease. It may even be possible to detect genetic markers that correlate with intelligence or other attributes. We all know, or at least should know, that our genetic nature is not deterministic. Our environment, or our nurture also can have a profound impact on the way that human individuals will develop and experience their world.

But nurture is open ended and ideal environments are hard to create, requiring a great deal of social engineering. Given all the hype about genetics, and some ability to make connections, it is far from inconceivable that:

1. Parents will want to screen their future children through genetic testing with “an ever-lengthening menu of prenatal genetic tests’.
2. Employers will want to screen future employees for intelligence, health or other desirable qualities.
3. Insurance companies will offer “substantially reduced premiums to people with a healthy genetic makeup.
4. People will begin to compete for social resources and social status in terms of their genetic makeup - they will “flaunt their DNA profiles.”

These issues give rise to important ethical concerns, particularly with respect to the rights of individuals for opportunities to succeed, equal treatment, and even privacy. Such issues are the domain of a new subject called bioethics. While bioethics is a growing subject, however, there is a danger says Weinberg, that it will be swamped by “the surrounding genetic analysis.”

Weinberg argues that we need to be careful about rushing into the human genome project before we’ve thought seriously about its dark side. If we give genetic science and related technologies too much power we might be allowing biotechnology to dictate our life course. In the process, we may lose much of what makes us truly human, and especially our freedom.

Charo: ‘And Baby Makes three - or Four, or Five, or Six’

Charo views the genetic revolution from a much more positive light, but then she’s not really concerned about genetic manipulation or human cloning. What she’s interested in is AID (artificial insemination by donor) and surrogate parenting. In some ways, she suggests that these are liberating. How exactly?

1. Women who are infertile now have the possibility of having children carried to term by surrogate mothers.
2. Women can now have children without having to be married, thereby increasing their independence from males.
3. Homosexual and lesbian couples can now have children.

The problem for Charo is that this potential for liberation and the exploration of new kinds of families is inhibited by the present law. The law does two things that are sometimes contradictory but both related to traditional definitions of marriage and the family:

1. On the one hand, the law looks for the genetic or heredital connection between two members of different sexes. That is the way the law usually defines marriage and the legitimate offspring.
2. On the other hand, the law is willing to waive the genetic connection occasionally in favour of a more contractual but still traditional notion of marriage and the family. In other words, if a mother gives up a child for adoption, the new mother becomes the legitimate one and the other gives up her rights.

Of course, the emphasis here is on the traditional nuclear family containing mom, dad and the kids. New genetic technologies confuse these categories immensely and show their historical limitations. For example, a surrogate mother blends her body with the child for nine months, but according to the genetic and contractual definitions of the family, she may have absolutely no rights with respect to the child. She is considered by some courts of law to have given up control over her own body during pregnancy.

Another serious issue is that, in the recent legal battleground between genetic and gestational mothers, the rights of the male, who only donated the sperm, is rarely questions. Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, however a pregnant woman becomes a “human incubator”, the male is always going to be the legitimate father of the child.

Charo explores some of the contradictions in the law that favour men over women - i.e. she tries to expose patriarchal values. But her bigger agenda is to say that we need to scrap the traditional model of the family because it is too restrictive. However the legal cases turn out, someone - usually a woman - is going to suffer. What she suggests is a new set of legal definitions that takes into account everyone who is involved in a child’s life and upbringing - in other words measuring “genes, gestation, or declaration” (that someone is giving up or taking care of a child).

The model that she sets up as an ideal is that of co-parenting between homosexual and lesbian couples, where all 4 of the people principally involved (albeit in different ways) have rights and responsibilities towards the conceived. Ironically, such rational and adaptive relationships (according to the author) usually lack the legal and social sanction of outdated, restrictive and emotionally hurtful relationships. Coparents in queer relationships don’t have significant problems dealing with 4 people who have a close relationship to the child. The children would appear to benefit from the extended support network. The biggest problem for the coparents “comes from a society and a legal system that fail to acknowledge the validity of their families.

Ultimately, suggests Charo, this is an issue of civil rights. The laws enacted to defend the rights of parents and children in a traditional society may have made sense. But, with the genetic revolution and the possibility of non-traditional families, these legal sanctions are unworkable and grossly unfair. Charo calls for legislators to create entirely new categories that fit our new situation and that are inclusive rather than restrictive. She believes, as she says at the end of her essay, that this will help children because “you can never have too many parents to love you.”

Kass: ‘The Wisdom of Repugnance’

Kass takes a completely different approach from Charo. In part, this is because he is dealing with the more negative potential of genetic engineering. In part, it is because he believes that traditional norms often have a wisdom that people like Charo might miss. Those who embrace such individual rights as the: right to produce, the right to have the kind of child and even familial relationship that one wants - in other words individual liberation, personal freedom and empowerment - misunderstand the deeper wisdom behind some moral values.

Kass probably would have some problems with Charo, given the fact that that he believes that sex between the sexes is a profound mystery and that the act of begetting children creates a very special kind of kinship relationship. But we don’t really need to waste time exploring such differences because Kass and Charo are making different kinds of arguments about different subjects. Charo is talking about simple reproductive strategies while Kass is talking about human cloning. Charo is talking about the connection between law, society and to some extent a patriarchal culture, while Kass is talking about ethics. In particular, Kass is talking about metaphysics or the deep wisdom or meaning of life. And he wants to warn us that human cloning is contrary to a deep understanding of human dignity. In fact, he says that it is repugnant to our human values.

Kass starts off in a measured way that belies the track the article will take. He says that human cloning will probably never be very extensive due to the difficulty and expense involved in the cloning procedure. There are, however, some people who would likely opt for cloning, especially among the 200 assisted reproduction clinics in the United States. Cloning could appear to be an attractive option for a number of reasons:

1. You could be better assured of the health, appearance and intelligence of your progeny.
2. Your child might be a cloned replacement for a previously lost and loved child.
3. There will always be a market for people who want to reproduce themselves.

Kass believes that most people find these ideas repugnant or disgusting. But the rationale behind this disgust needs to be discovered or it will be subject to criticism as irrational. Some will even be prepared to argue that this new technology is simply a neutral one; many people have problems with a new technology when it is first introduced; over time, they grow more comfortable with it. In fact, some may go so far as to argue that cloning will allow us to improve the overall human condition by breeding the best stock and providing replacement parts. Kass doesn’t want us to get comfortable or to lose our sense of disgust. Indeed, he wants to discover the profundity behind our repugnance. He thinks a job for ethics.

Cloning is a pollution and perversion of human nature for Kass because:

1. Cloning circumvents the natural process of sexual union with others. Sexual reproduction is an activity that connects us socially. It is through sex and marriage or relationships that we join a kinship group and society. Cloning is a highly individualistic and anti-social act.
2. Cloning demonstrates some of the basest characteristics in human nature - selfishness and self-obsession, pride, vanity.
3. Asexual reproduction or single-parent offspring is not characteristically human. In fact, it is characteristic of the lowest forms of life. Sexual union in humans serves an end that “is partly hidden from, and finally at odds with, the self-serving individual.” It reflects the human desire for union and wholeness that cannot be done as a solitary act.
4. Gender duality and sexual desire “draw our love upward and outside of ourselves.” Cloning moves in the opposite.
5. Sexual union reflects the fact that human relationships are emotional, emotive and complementary activity while cloning characteristically is an “activity of our rational wills.” The only emotions cloning reflects are selfish ones
6. Cloning involves depersonalization to the extent that it deprives offspring of their capacity for uniqueness and personhood.
7. Cloning resembles manufacturing or the production of children as artifacts of one’s own choosing.
8. Cloning implies the power of the clone over the cloned. In an important sense, clones are possessions, not to mention technically created artifacts. With cloning, man becomes yet another “man made thing.”
9. In normal reproduction and kinship relations, we know that our children are “not our children; they are not our property, not our possessions.” They clearly are unique creations with unique character traits who need to live their own lives and fulfill their own dreams - not our dreams.
10. In any discussion of rights and freedoms, Kass believes that we should privilege the right of the child not only to a sound genotype and heritage, but a unique genotype and a personal identity.

On these grounds, Kass suggests that human cloning is anti-human and destructive of our ethical identity. Thus, for no reason, would he allow any human cloning whatsoever - even for scientific or medical research. To allow any cloning of a human being, he suggests, however good the reasons, would put us on a slippery slope towards “the complete manufacture of human beings and the complete genetic control of one generation over the next.” The minimal solution, he claims, is a “unilateral national ban” on cloning in the interest of the deep mysteries of the human constitution and the norms of the human community. To do this would be wise rather than a bounded rationality that ultimately negates human dignity and freedom.

The notes presented here are for the AK NATS 1760.06 “Science, Technology and Society” course offered in the Fall/Winter Semester of 2001/2002 by the Atkinson College of York University, Toronto, Canada and taught by John Dwyer. The lectures are based on the following texts:

1. Martin Bridgstock et al, Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-521-58735-2
2. Kevin Robbins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life (New York, Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-415-16115-0
3. Albert H. Teich, Technology and the Future (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000), ISBN 0-312-01885-1

For more about John Dwyer, visit: http://www.sayitagain.com/ivorytower/