X-Message-Number: 22690
From: "Clement, James" <>
Subject: President's Council on Bioethics - More Anti-Longevity Rhetoric
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 07:40:58 -0400

October 17, 2003
Bush's Advisers on Biotechnology Express Concern on Its Use
By NICHOLAS WADE
Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the President's
Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an analysis of how biotechnology could
lead toward unintended and destructive ends.
Called "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness," the
council's report concerns present and future interventions intended not to
restore health but rather to alter genetic inheritance, to enhance mind or
body, or to extend life span beyond its natural limits.
These range from selecting the sex of children, to drugs that change the
mind or improve athletic performance, to the various research projects that
seek to tap the body's presumed capacity for extreme longevity. While the
report is not attributed to a single author, it is written in a graceful
style quite distinct from standard government prose and very similar to that
of Dr. Leon R. Kass, the council's chairman.
Dr. Kass said in an interview that the purpose of the report was educational
but that the council, created by President Bush two years ago as an advisory
body on bioethical issues, would use it as a springboard for future
recommendations.
The report's overall thrust is that people's desire to improve themselves or
to give their children an edge carries the risk of putting strain on human
nature in many unintended ways. The council expresses concern at "the
attractive science-based power to remake ourselves after images of our own
devising." It asks if the purpose of medicine is "to make us perfect, or to
make us whole?" It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex
and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting
evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at
`improvement.' "
One attempt, where individuals' interest may clearly differ from society's,
is that of choosing the sex of one's children - to balance the sexes within
a family in some cultures, to obtain a son in others.
The report notes that a sex ratio of more than 106 boys to 100 girls can be
regarded as evidence of sex selection - usually achieved by sonogram and
abortion, though sperm-sorting methods developed from animal husbandry are
also available. In Cuba the sex ratio is now 118, in China 117, in Egypt
108.7 and in Venezuela 107.5. There have also been significant changes in
the ratio among two American ethnic groups: over the last 20 years, the sex
ratio for Chinese-Americans has risen to 107.7 from 104.6, and for
Japanese-Americans to 106.4 from 102.6.
Previous ethics commissions, the council notes, have had little to say in
favor of sex selection yet have insisted that it should not be made illegal.
The council is not so sure. "Having one's sex foreordained by another is
different from having it determined by the lottery of sexual union," the
report observes.
The council is also concerned about prescribing mood-changing drugs to
children. Though some children need medication to help concentrate, others
take drugs to improve performance. This is not the best way to learn
self-control, in the council's view.
"By medicalizing key elements of our life through biotechnical
interventions," the report says, "we may weaken our sense of responsibility
and agency."
Turning to aging, the council notes that many aspects of life are tuned to
the orderly cycle of birth, marriage and death, and says that to disrupt
this cycle by indefinitely postponing death could change life's meaning in
unacceptable ways. "The pursuit of an ageless body may prove finally to be a
distraction and a deformation," the report says. 
The prospect of death makes each generation eager to pass on its wisdom and
goods to the next; but with immortal life, this incentive would fray.
Further, who would not hesitate a little at saying "until death do us part"
if life expectancy at the time of marriage were a full century, the council
asks. And while three-generation families may be a blessing, having five
generations around at the same time could be just too much.
The council's report draws attention to the power of commercial enterprises
to shape people's desires, driving them to consumption of Ritalin, Botox,
Rogaine, Viagra and Prozac. It notes that scientists, another interest
group, "are especially inclined to resist legal limitations that might be
imposed on their activities based on ethical considerations" - presumably a
reference to the continuing debate over the appropriate use of human
embryonic stem cells. The council's message is that neither commerce nor
science, despite their utility, should be allowed to dictate a reshaping of
human nature.
The 310-page report is online at the council's Web site, bioethics.gov.


A.G. Edwards & Sons' outgoing and incoming e-mails are electronically
archived and subject to review and/or disclosure to someone other
than the recipient. We cannot accept orders for transactions or other
similar instructions through e-mail. We cannot ensure the security of 
information e-mailed over the Internet, so you should be careful when 
transmitting confidential information such as account numbers and 
security holdings.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22690