THE ETHICS OF OUR TIME V

GENETICS
CHANGING THE HUMAN GENOME

Is it good or right to tweak the genomes of living things? Actually we’ve been tweaking the genome since the first man chose the prettiest girl with whom to mate. One of the reasons humans have come to dominate the bio-system is because we figured out how to ‘breed’ plants and animals to be more like we want them to be. If it isn’t wrong to put males and females (who may not be interested in each other in that way) together in order to gain descendents that have more meat, are more docile, are more trainable, are better-looking (to us), why is it wrong to do it not in the barnyard but in the lab? And don’t kid yourselves, humans have been bred exactly the same way. By un-natural selection.

Actually, the idea that scientists can change a child’s genome in a predictable way is still pure science fiction. The Genome Project has only just given us our first complete picture of human genetic structure. We don’t know yet (as of the time of this writing, anyway) which genes caused you to have your eye color, type of hair, genetic disease, or a happy disposition. But we’re figuring it out. The controversy on this topic isn’t about what science CAN do, it’s about which science MIGHT be able to do someday. IF we figure out which genes cause inherited diseases, we still may not know what else may be affected if we change them. For instance, maybe science could engineer a perfectly disease-free man by tweaking his genes around – but maybe he wouldn’t be able to reproduce. It’s as if we finally have the alphabet, but haven’t yet written a single word, much less a best-seller. That doesn’t mean these issues aren’t going to come up – they are.

CLONING, STEM CELLS AND ABORTION

Cloning (especially of humans) is touchy subject. Many people don’t seem to understand that if you were to clone a human being, all you would get is the GENE SET OF THE BABY. Exactly what he or she was born with. You could theoretically get a baby Einstein (if his DNA’s available), but his environment and experiences would make him a completely different – new – person. He might look somewhat like the Einstein we knew, but he would have had a completely different life. Perhaps he’d become a rock star obsessed with body-piercings. Or he might not be born at all, because right now cloning has an unacceptable failure rate, not only in the cloning process itself, but in the disabilities it can unintentionally cause. But cloning may get better, as most technologies do, and the issue itself probably won’t go away.

Cloning for the purpose of growing new organs takes us into the area of controversial Stem Cell technology. There are some cells in each of us that are ‘undifferentiated,’ that is, they haven’t made up their minds what to be yet. By removing some of these cells from you, and implanting them in a human egg which has had it’s own DNA removed, and waiting for it to grow (exactly as the first few cells of a new human would grow), it’s theoretically possible that enough cells could be grown to make the organ you are in need of. The organ grown this way wouldn’t be rejected as ‘foreign’ by your body. People needing organ transplants might be able to get them without waiting for someone who is compatible to donate them. The controversy is partly due to the fact that it isn’t even known yet if this can be done successfully, and partly from the fact that once this human "egg" is growing it has the potential to grow into a human being. Perhaps you can see where this is headed. By causing the cells to turn into a heart or a kidney, have we aborted a human life? Of course, it wouldn’t be a ‘natural’ human, having only one set of DNA. It would, in fact, if allowed to develop, be a clone. Again, we’re not there yet, but this issue is another one that won’t go away.

What about the idea of cloning meat? What if we could get all the prime beef we want and no cow had to die? Would this satisfy the vegetarians of conscience? Will we refuse to eat it because it’s ‘unnatural?’ We need to think about where we heading.

I’ve noticed that doctors who perform legal abortions are often attacked, even killed, by religious people but religious people are hardly ever killed by doctors. Abortion is another issue that’s been around at least as long as prostitution, but in our time has become a controversy. Since ancient times, a woman who was raped, too poor to support any more children, was impregnated through prostitution, or was simply unmarried has been not only permitted but helped along to abort the unwanted pregnancy. The methods weren’t always successful (crocodile dung suppositories were popular in Egypt), and often lead to the mother’s death. When medical technology made it possible to abort the unwanted child without harm to the mother, we passed legislation that such an abortion could only be performed if to carry the child to term would endanger the woman’s life. Unfortunately, some have chosen to use it in place of birth control. In some places, legislation allows abortion simply because the mother would be inconvenienced. This is not the fault of the doctors. It’s the fault of the man and woman who conspired in impregnation through negligence, then refused to accept responsibility for it. The powerful urge to mate is part of our human make-up. It’s easier to use birth control than to get people to stop. However, even if we grant that they should have been more careful, now that the deed is done, if she thinks pregnancy is inconvenient, what’s she going to think of 2am feedings, diapers, the cost of schooling, and all the other tasks of parenthood? I wouldn’t want to be that woman’s child. And I’m not willing to take her child into my home to be raised as my own. How can you (and why would you) legislate that a woman must raise a child when she has neither the means nor the desire to do so?

Now that we have a ‘morning after’ pill that can stop a pregnancy if there’s been an ‘accident,’ this becomes simply an issue of education. But interestingly, the Christian church is still offended due to their belief that ‘all life is sacred.’ But if all life is sacred, how can they defend bombing clinics? This idea of ‘sacredness’ doesn’t seem to extend to actual living beings which might be contained in or located near such clinics.

It has been common practice in many cultures in human history to carry a child to term, and if it doesn’t meet the parents’ requirements (for example, if it isn’t perfect, or isn’t a boy), it was simply carried to the nearest wilderness and left to die. Before we had laws about such things, if we knew of someone who wanted a child, and we had an extra, we’d just hand them over.

The reason we originally celebrated a ‘birthday,’ also called a ‘naming-day’ was because children were so likely to die in infancy that we didn’t bother naming them until they’d reached a year or two of age. This idea that a child’s life is sacred (especially unborn children) is new to our species. This is why it’s not covered in our religious ‘codes.’ There’s nothing against abortion in the Bible.