A recent poll conducted in 15 countries by the BBVA Foundation shows that citizens in the developed world are largely in support of assisted reproductive technologies. In particular, most people polled were very much in support of in vitro fertilization, a technique used to help couples with fertility problems (scoring over 7 points on an acceptance scale from 0 to 10). At the same time, however, there was strong disapproval for using the technique to choose a baby’s gender, with scores consistently showing below 3 points.
Arthur Caplan, PhD, director of the Center for Bioethics, was named to Discover Magazine’s “Smartest People on the Planet” list, which includes picks “from genius kids and rising stars to unsung heroes and self-styled outsiders.” IEET’s Executive Director was honored to have the opportunity to heartily endorse the choice of Dr. Caplan.
The IEET and the editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET) are pleased to announce the publication of two special issues of JET, one brought together by Sky Marsen with the intention of publishing a book on transhumanism, and the other a collection of papers from the IEET’s May 2006 Human Enhancement Technology and Human Rights conference at Stanford University. Together they represent the wide array of issues at play in the debate over human enhancement and our transhuman future, from the daily lived experience of pushing to maximize one’s potential, to the legal, political and philosophical arguments we will need to secure universal access to safe enhancement technologies. Enjoy!
I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways.
Most observers of social movements, even their participants, underestimate their diversity and complexity. Every social movement is a constantly roiling mass of uneasy fractions, tendencies and subtendencies, tenuously and temporarily allying, with shifting meanings for core terms and goals, from “the Enlightenment”, to “anarchism” to “conservatism” to “environmentalism”. This is the problem that Columbia historian Matthew Connelly seeks to correct in Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population.
The goal of a liberal society puts obligations on its citizens, that we practice reasonableness and openness to ideas, that we do not just tolerate one another but support one another to our fullest flourishing. A liberal society is not neutral about values like disease and health, sloth and effort, deceit and integrity, cowardice and courage. There are excellences that citizens of a liberal society must promote to survive. [Discuss this article in IEET Fora]
In the last two decades, our rapidly developing biotechnology has brought us into the realm of human genetic engineering.We are now able to not only screen for many diseases and a few genetic characteristics, but are on the verge of being able to select characteristics of a child.
An IEET White Paper by By George Dvorsky and James Hughes.
Abstract: Postgenderism is an extrapolation of ways that technology is eroding the biological, psychological and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory. Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology and reproductive technologies. Postgenderists contend that dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphisms are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Assisted reproduction will make it possible for individuals of any sex to reproduce in any combinations they choose, with or without “mothers” and “fathers,” and artificial wombs will make biological wombs unnecessary for reproduction. Greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality. Postgenderists do not call for the end of all gender traits, or universal androgyny, but rather that those traits become a matter of choice. Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression.
The folks visiting the IEET appear to be a little more liberal on the topic of reproductive cloning than the average homo sapien, since nine out of ten of you voted to make it a legal reproductive choice once it is safe.
Andres Lomena recently conducted an interview for the Spanish magazine Cronopis with the Chair of the IEET’s Board of directors Nick Bostrom, as well as with IEET friend David Pearce, about their co-founding of the World Transhumanist Association and related topics. They have kindly allowed us to reprint the interview here.
For the past decade, the public sphere has buzzed with arguments about real or imagined genetic technologies, such as embryonic sex selection, reproductive cloning, and human genetic enhancement - much of the noise prompted by the announcement, back in 1997, of Dolly the cloned sheep. How far have we come in that time?
Abstract This paper examines the UK regulatory framework and the ethical arguments surrounding the use of genetic tests, specifically considering how they would apply to selecting for enhanced health characteristics.
It’s funny how we pick our battles. While I try to focus on some of the more important social issues facing Canadians, there are some minor annoyances that will get a rise out of me every time.
Responding with alarm to the U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting the banning of late-term abortions reproductive rights activists have insisted that any restrictions on a woman’s right to choose must be fought.
In his bioethics blog last week, Udo Schuklenk published some of the most sensible words written by anyone so far about the human cloning debate. He begins with the uncompromising - but clearly correct - claim that, “The reproductive cloning debate was undoubtedly ‘won’ by Luddites.”
A recent Journal of Medical Ethics article by Matteo Mameli challenges two versions of the popular argument that human reproductive cloning and genetic engineering should be prohibited because they would undermine the autonomy of children. The reference is M. Mameli, “Reproductive cloning, genetic engineering and the autonomy of the child”, Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (2007): 87-93.
The majority say it should be illegal to disable a child by choice or genetic modification before conception, but almost a third think it should be legal and subsidized.
New poll: Is nuclear power part of the solution to the carbon emissions problem?
Over at the Huffington Post, R.J. Eskow blogged earlier this week about enhancement technologies and transhumanism, commenting specifically on my piece about Fenton and Fukuyama from last weekend.
I’m currently reading Beyond Bioethics, the extensive report on proposed regulation of reproductive technologies, prepared by Francis Fukuyama and Franco Furger and published late last year. I lost patience on about page 64, when I reached its exposition of the moral principles on which it relies. Really, this is all nonsense.
I guess the next question is whether we should be supporting or opposing laws that are imprisoning doctors in India today for telling women the sex of their feti? But I’ll ask that later.
The new poll question (which closes 2007-01-27) is “What do you think about the utopian impulse?”
Now that George Bush has vetoed a bill rejecting legislation passed by Congress that would have expanded federal research on embryonic stem cells, Americans have been given a taste of what Canadians have had to deal with for the past four years.
IEET Blog |
email list |
newsletter |
The IEET is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in the State of Connecticut in the United States.
Contact: Executive Director, Dr. James J. Hughes,
Williams 119, Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT
06106 USA
Email: director @ ieet.org phone:
860-297-2376
FEMEN “Topless Warriors” Documentary
IEET Blog