Some issues to be thinking about, before it "just happens".... Sally Lerner
>Would you believe......
>
> Genetically Modified Humans?
> Genetically Modified Humans?
> Genetically Modified Humans?
>
>
>From: "bruce katz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Fw: sfp-184: The New Eugenics: Genetically Modified Humans
>Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 20:21:32 -0400
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Eric Fawcett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: 17 juillet, 2000 16:24
>Subject: sfp-184: The New Eugenics: Genetically Modified Humans
>
>
>
>The New Eugenics: The Case Against Genetically Modified Humans
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>By Marcy Darnovsky, WHO works with the Exploratory Initiative on the New
>Human Genetic Technologies, and teaches courses in the politics of
>science, technology, and the environment in the Hutchins School of Liberal
>Studies at Sonoma State University, California.
>
>At the cusp of dot-com frenzy and the biotech century, a group of
>influential scientists and pundits has begun zealously promoting a new
>bio-engineered utopia. In the world of their visionary fervor, parents
>will strive to afford the latest genetic "improvements" for their
>children. According to the advocates of this human future (or, as some
>term it, "post-human" future), the exercise of consumer preferences for
>offspring options will be the prelude to a grand achievement: the
>technological control of human evolution.
>
>My first close encounter with this techno-eugenic enthusiasm was in a 1997
>book written for an unconverted lay audience by Princeton geneticist Lee
>M. Silver. In Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World (New
>York: Avon Books), Silver spins out scenarios of a future in which
>affluent parents are as likely to arrange genetic enhancements for their
>children as to send them to private school.
>
>Silver confidently predicts that upscale baby-making will soon take place
>in fertility clinics, where prospective parents will undergo an IVF
>procedure to create an embryo, then select the physical, cognitive, and
>behavioral traits they desire for their child-to-be. Technicians will
>insert the genes said to produce those traits into the embryo, and implant
>the embryo in the mother's womb. Nine months later, a designer baby will
>be born. After a few centuries of these practices, Silver believes,
>humanity will bifurcate into genetic ubermenschen and untermenschen--and
>not long thereafter into different species. Here is Silver's prediction
>for the year 2350: "The GenRich--who account for 10 percent of the
>American population--all carry synthetic genes. Genes that were created in
>the laboratory....The GenRich are a modern-day hereditary class of genetic
>aristocrats....All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment
>industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the
>GenRich class."
>
>How do the other 90 percent live? Silver is quite blunt on this point as
>well: "Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as laborers." That
>rich and poor already live in biologically disparate worlds can be argued
>on the basis of any number of statistical measures: life expectancy,
>infant mortality, access to health care. Of course, medical resources and
>social priorities could be assigned to narrowing those gaps. But if Silver
>and his cohort of designer-baby advocates have their way, precious medical
>talent and funds will be devoted instead to a technically dubious project
>whose success will be measured by the extent to which it can inscribe
>inequality onto the human genome. Silver pushes his vision still further:
>"[A]s time passes,...the GenRich class and the Natural class will become
>the GenRich humans and the Natural humans--entirely separate species with
>no ability to cross-breed, and with as much romantic interest in each
>other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee."
>
>Silver understands that such scenarios are disconcerting. He counsels
>realism. In other words, he celebrates the free reign of the market and
>perpetuates the myth that private choices have no public consequences:
>"Anyone who accepts the right of affluent parents to provide their
>children with an expensive private school education cannot use
>`unfairness' as a reason for rejecting the use of reprogenetic
>technologies....There is no doubt about it...whether we like it or not,
>the global marketplace will reign supreme."
>
>When I first read Silver's book, I imagined that these sorts of bizarre
>prognostications must be the musings of a lab researcher indulging in
>mad-scientist mode. I soon learned differently. They are not ravings from
>the margins of modern science, but emanations from its prestigious and
>respected core. Silver vividly and accurately represents a technical and
>political agenda for the human future that is shared by a disturbing
>number of Nobel laureate scientists, biotech entrepreneurs, social
>theorists, bioethicists, and journalists.
>
>Since the late 1990s, this loose alliance has been publicly and
>energetically promoting the genetic technology known as "human germline
>engineering"-- modifying the genes passed to our children by manipulating
>embryos at their earliest stages of development. Such genetic
>modifications would be replicated in all subsequent generations, providing
>supporters with the basis to claim that "we" are on the brink of "seizing
>control of human evolution." Frank about their commitments to control and
>"enhancement," advocates of human germline engineering claim that the
>voluntary parental participation they foresee refutes any characterization
>of their project as "eugenic." With public conferences, popular books,
>scholarly articles, websites, and mainstream media appearances, they are
>waging an all-out campaign to win public acceptance of their
>techno-eugenic vision.
>
>The promoters of a designer-baby future believe that the new human genetic
>and reproductive technologies are both inevitable and a boon to humanity.
>They exuberantly describe near-term genetic manipulations--within a
>generation--that may increase resistance to diseases, "optimize" height
>and weight, and boost intelligence. Further off, but within the lifetimes
>of today's children, they foresee the ability to adjust personality,
>design new body forms, extend life expectancy, and endow
>hyper-intelligence. Some even predict splicing traits from other species
>into children: In late 1999, for example, an ABC Nightline special on
>human cloning speculated that genetic engineers would learn to design
>children with "night vision from an owl" and "supersensitive hearing
>cloned from a dog."
>
>How plausible are such scenarios? Because human beings are far more than
>the product of genes--because DNA is one of many factors in human
>development--the feats of genetic manipulation eventually accomplished
>will almost certainly turn out to be much more modest than what the
>designer-baby advocates predict. But we cannot dismiss the possibility
>that scientists will achieve enough mastery over the human genome to wreak
>enormous damage--biologically and politically.
>
>Promoting a future of genetically engineered inequality legitimizes the
>vast existing injustices that are socially arranged and enforced.
>Marketing the ability to specify our children's appearance and abilities
>encourages a grotesque consumerist mentality toward children and all human
>life. Fostering the notion that only a "perfect baby" is worthy of life
>threatens our solidarity with and support for people with disabilities,
>and perpetuates standards of perfection set by a market system that caters
>to political, economic, and cultural elites. Channeling hopes for human
>betterment into preoccupation with genetic fixes shrinks our already
>withered commitments to improving social conditions and enriching cultural
>and community life.
>
>Germline engineering is now common in laboratory animals, though it
>remains at best an imprecise technology, requiring hundreds of attempts
>before a viable engineered animal is produced. Human germline manipulation
>has not been attempted: The only kind of human genetic procedures
>currently practiced involve efforts to "fix" or substitute for the genes
>of somatic (body) cells in people with health problems that in some way
>reflect the functions of genes.
>
>In about five hundred "gene therapy" clinical trials since the early
>1990s, doctors have tried to introduce genetic modifications to patients'
>lungs, nerves, muscles, and other tissues. These efforts have been largely
>unsuccessful. In late 1999, their safety was also called starkly into
>question by the death of an 18-year-old enrolled in a clinical trial, and
>by ensuing revelations of almost 700 other "serious adverse effects" that
>researchers and doctors had somehow failed to report to the proper
>regulatory authorities. Some observers have commented that gene therapy
>would more accurately be called "genetic experiments on human subjects."
>
>Many people are reluctant to oppose human germline engineering because
>they believe that "genetics" will deliver medical cures or treatments. But
>there is no reason that we cannot forgo germline engineering and still
>support other genetic technologies that do in fact hold promising medical
>potential. In fact, the medical justifications for human germline
>engineering are strained, while its ethical and political risks are
>profound.
>
>Fortunately, the distinction between human germline engineering and other
>genetic technologies (including somatic genetic engineering) is a
>reasonably clear technical demarcation. In many countries, this
>demarcation is being drawn as law. Legislation that would ban human
>germline engineering and reproductive cloning is making its way through
>the Canadian parliament. Germany's Embryo Protection Act of 1990 makes
>human cloning and germline engineering criminal acts, and the Japanese
>legislature is considering establishing prison terms for human cloning. A
>number of other European countries forbid cloning and germline engineering
>indirectly by outlawing non-therapeutic research on human embryos.
>Twenty-two European countries have signed a Council of Europe bioethics
>convention that includes similar restrictions. In the United States,
>however, neither federal law nor policy forbids human germline engineering
>or cloning, though federal funds cannot be used for any kinds of human
>cloning experiments.
>
>In order to bring the new human genetic technologies under social
>governance, strong political pressure and a broad social movement will be
>necessary. Though no such movement currently exists, efforts to alert and
>engage a variety of constituencies are getting underway.
>
>The movement that this work aims to catalyze will need to draw in a wide
>range of constituencies, and encompass a variety of motivations. Some
>participants will base their opposition to a techno-eugenic future on
>their commitments to equality and justice, and to human improvement
>through social change rather than technical fix. Others will be moved by
>the threats to human dignity and human rights, and the horror of treating
>children as custom-made commodities, that germline engineering and cloning
>entail. Still others will find their primary inspiration in the
>precautionary principle, or their wariness of techno-scientific hubris and
>a reductionist world view, or their objections to corporate ownership of
>life at the molecular level, or their skepticism about the drastic
>technological manipulation of the natural world.
>
>It will be far easier to prevent a techno-eugenic future if we act before
>human germline manipulation develops further, either as technology or
>ideology. This is a crucial juncture: a window that the campaign for human
>germline engineering is trying to slam shut. Your participation is
>urgently needed.
>
>
>
>(This article is appearing as a Different Takes issue paper from the
>Hampshire College Population and Development Program. A longer version is
>forthcoming as "The Case Against Designer Babies: The Politics of Genetic
>Enhancement," in Brian Tokar, ed. Redesigning Life? The Worldwide
>Challenge to Genetic Engineering, Zed Books.)
>
>RESOURCES
>~~~~~~~~~
>The Exploratory Initiative on the New Human Genetic Technologies (466
>Green Street, San Francisco, CA 94133, USA, phone: 415-434-1403) is
>working to oppose genetic technologies especially human germline
>engineering and reproductive cloning, that foster eugenic ideologies and
>objectify and commodify human life. To subscribe to its free on-line
>newsletter, or for other inquiries about becoming involved, please e-mail
>Marcy Darnovsky at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
>
>Books opposing techno-eugenics:
>
>Andrews, Lori. The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive
>Technology. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.
>
>Appleyard, Bryan. Brave New Worlds: Staying Human in the Genetic Future.
>New York: Viking, 1998.
>
>Hubbard, Ruth and Elijah Wald. Exploding the Gene Myth. Boston: Beacon
>Press, 1997.
>
>Kimbrell, Andrew. The Human Body Shop: The Engineering and
>Marketing of Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
>
>Rifkin, Jeremy. The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking
>the World. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Putnam, 1998.
>
>
>
>Books supporting techno-eugenics:
>
>Pence, Gregory E. Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?
>Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
>
>Silver, Lee. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a
>Brave New World. New York: Avon, 1997.
>
>Web sites opposing techno-eugenics:
>Council for Responsible Genetics <http://www.gene-watch.org>
>Campaign Against Human Genetic Engineering
><http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~cahge> Genetic
>Engineering and its Dangers
><http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/gedanger.htm>
>
>Web sites supporting techno-eugenics:
>UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society (GregoryStock, director)
><http://research.mednet.ucla.edu/pmts/germline> Extropy
>Institute <http://www.extropy.org>
>
>
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>
> .............................................
> Bob Olsen, Toronto [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Freedom is participation in power
> .............................................
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