Sunday, August 19, 2012

Future-perfect: the rationally designed human

A bioethicist suggests that genetically engineering babies along a "rational design" would benefit humanity.Professor Julian Savulescu of the University of Oxford is quoted as saying, "Indeed, when it come to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children."  

What else might be erased under the notion of a 'personality flaw'? Would humanity truly improve by removing perceived flaws or is there a net benefit to retaining diversity? As the professor notes, "routinely screening embryos and foetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down's syndrome" results in "little public outcry."

Earlier this year, there was public outcry when it was discovered that an American reproductive clinic offering gender selection services was advertising its services in Canada. Sex-selective procedures are illegal in Canada under Section 5(1)(e) of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Advertising such services is also illegal under the Act.

Also under Section 5(1)(e), though, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act does allow for sex-selective procedures "to prevent, diagnose or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease ...". Under the DSM and it's proposed revisions, a substantial list of conditions fall under the broad category of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. How broadly applied might legislation allowing genetic manipulation actually be?

I think it's fair to state that Western culture remains heavily biased towards a sex binary and that as such, the dominant culture might consider eradicating the possibility of trans at a genetic level to be a perfectly acceptable and even non-contentious decision.

But is eradicating the trans experience from the human experience actually such an easy decision? Would those who have undergone this experience agree that the possibility of being trans is itself problematic?

Is there value to undergoing the trans experience? Does such an experience have lessons to share with those who haven't and won't undergo that experience? As trans people, would we be comfortable with trans identities never having the opportunity to exist? Is there some sort of intrinsic value to coming to know ourselves as not fitting our assigned identity and undertaking the journey to uncover and assert ourselves as who we are?

Telegraph article originally linked via Slashdot.