The clone wars: A reason online debate

Reason, June, 2002 by Gregory Stock, Francis Fukuyama

Fukuyama no doubt feels that a sharp line between therapy and enhancement will avoid such perversions, but this distinction does not stand up to scrutiny. This line will increasingly blur in the years ahead. Anti-aging interventions, for example, fall in a large realm that is best labeled therapeutic enhancement. If we could gain an extra decade by strengthening our immune system or our anti-oxidation and cellular repair mechanisms, this would clearly be a human enhancement. But it would also be a preventive therapy, because it would delay cardiovascular disease, senile dementia, cancer, and other illnesses of aging, which we spend billions trying to treat.

Banning enhancement from sports competitions can obviously be justified as away of enforcing the agreed-upon rules of the game. But neither Fukuyama nor our democratic political institutions have a recognized right to set the rules of life. Outlawing a whole realm of benefits that are not injuring others is not just impractical; it is tyranny. Enhancement is not wrong, and when such possibilities become safe and reliable large numbers of people will seek them. Fukuyama is right about the ambiguities of "improvement," but I have not suggested some grandiose government project that seeks human perfection. I have spoken only of freely made parental choices, and I argue that such choices are likely to lead toward great diversity.

I do not argue that parents need no oversight in the use of advanced technology for the conception of children, just that it should be minimal, should address real rather than imagined problems, and should be concerned with the child's safety rather than the social order or the personhood of embryos. When it comes to children, I trust the judgment of individual parents more than that of political or judicial panels. Most parents are deeply concerned about the welfare of their own children, whereas such panels are composed of individuals who are more oriented toward larger social and philosophical concerns than the well-being of particular individuals.

Upholding Norms

Our laws should be updated to take account of technological advances.

Francis Fukuyama

I THINK GREG STOCK has misunderstood a couple of the points I was trying to make in my initial response. The issue with regard to sex selection is not that it would be a serious problem in this country; it's possible now, after all, but not widely practiced. The point is that individual choice coupled with the spread of cheap biomedical technologies can quickly produce population-level effects with serious social consequences. In other words, the problem with eugenics is not simply that it is state-sponsored and coercive; if practiced by enough individuals, it can also have negative consequences for the broader society.

I suspect that if the U.S. ever gets into something like this in the future, it will have to do with potential "enhancement" targets other than sex. One I speculate about in my book is sexual preference: It seems pretty clear to me that if parents, including ones who are perfectly accepting of gays today, had the choice, they would select against their children being gay, if for no other reason than their desire to have grandchildren. (Contrary to Stock, by the way, gays can't reproduce, so I'm not quite sure how they'd do germ-line intervention to produce gay children.) The proportion of gays in the population could drop quite dramatically, and I'm not at all sure that society as a whole (let alone gays as a persecuted minority) would be enhanced as a result.