Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
or debate (at least in the United States) about their desirability or chances
of success, the very real possibility of applying these techniques to
humans in the not-too-distant future seems finally to have caused many
in the political community and some in the scientific professions to step
back and ask whether we really want to go down this road. Already in
most of Europe, the cloning of humans is banned for reproductive—
though not, as in the case of England, for therapeutic—purposes, and
support for similar legislation is growing in North America as well. This
suggests that cracks may be appearing in the collective will to subject
ourselves and future generations to changes whose inalterability is
matched only by their profundity. To be sure, the compromises and shifts
in popular and scientific opinion that undoubtedly lie on the horizon are
unknown and impossible to predict. One can legitimately wonder
whether this is merely a pause in a process that no human or group of
humans can hinder or stop in the long run. But what is becoming clearer
to many through the public voice of environmentalism and the high
profile of many bioethical issues such as stem cell research is the unprece-
dented character of our technologies in their temporal and geographic
impact on the planet. The effects of genetic enhancement, like the con-
sequences of atomic fission, will last far into the future and will not be
limited to localities or even large regions. Dealing with this sobering fact
has recently taken on a new sense of urgency, since the distinction
between somatic and germ line therapies has become increasingly diffi-
cult to maintain in light of a variety of new techniques as simple as pre-
implantation genetic diagnosis that blur the demarcation of what is
presently permissible in genetic research and application.
The chapters in this topic should be seen against this background.
Specifically, they arose out of a conference in spring 2001 at the Uni-
versity of Scranton dedicated to posing two questions: (1) does genetic
engineering of humans require a new understanding of what it means to
be human, and (2) does what we already know suggest that there should
be (and can be) effective limits to what can be done? With these con-
siderations in mind, we brought together thinkers from a variety of dis-
ciplines for three days of intense discussion and exchange of ideas. (Jean
Bethke Elshtain was unable to attend, but graciously agreed to write a
chapter especially for this volume.) Papers were not read but briefly sum-
marized, having been distributed several weeks beforehand. This of
