Cultural eugenics

My post today is going to be about something I’ve already brushed in my two previous posts. In my Aldous Huxley’s example of a dystopia brought along in part by the artificial creation of perfectly adapted humans in an artificial womb, the most salient aspect might seem to be ectogenesis, which, when presented in such a dystopic environment, might seem like a pretty dehumanizing process. However, I think that the one thing that is the most morally revolting in this image of humans being created like cars on an assembly line is less the absence of a mother and more the fact that humans are being engineered and created on purpose to suit the needs of society. This practice comes from a selection process called eugenics. The idea of eugenics is typically attributed to Francis Galton who, inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution, suggested that the human species could be made better by artificially selecting those with more desirable traits such as intelligence or wealth while keeping other people, with “inferior” traits from breeding. To put it in very general words, eugenics can be defined as “making the gene pool of humans better”. This idea, born in 1883, was partly used by the Nazis to justify the killing of thousands of people, and I’m pretty sure that very few today would like to be associated to the Nazis by defending ideas of eugenics.

In my second post about ectogenesis, I have discussed the delicate moral issue of doctors having to take the decision about keeping a foetus alive after miscarriage, considering that such a foetus could lead to weakened human that could potentially live a life of suffering. This is an issue that is closely associated with eugenics, and one way that ectogenesis could be questioned as a technique because of its moral consequences. However, I believe that the mechanism of eugenics is already present in our present society as a form of cultural eugenics and that the technology that could make it more salient, such as the embryo selection from the “Brave new world” dystopia is mostly an extension of a process that’s been happening anyway.

The idea of eugenics was in part inspired by Galton’s half-cousin Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection. This theory basically states that in the natural world (of which humans are a part of), the selection of who gets to mate and who doesn’t isn’t random and that desirable traits will make it more likely that an individual will reproduce before they die. Natural selection is the process through which traits that give an individual more chances to survive will have more chances to be… well, alive when mating time comes. The second process, sexual selection, underline the fact that individual are actively choosing their own partners when it comes to reproduction and that in order to do so, they will choose those who have desirable traits. In that aspect, I believe that the basis for eugenics, to choose which individual gets to reproduce or not is but an attempt to consciously control something that already happens in nature.

While we might question the wisdom of trying to influence something nature is already doing (The good old nature is good argument), there is no doubt that it is already happening anyway through cultural norms and systemic oppressions that we are already seeing in the world. We already live in a world where popular culture, media and publicity is actively shaping people’s belief about who is “fuckable” or not. If you don’t find a sexual partner because society judges you unattractive, be it because of your skin color, disability, lack of resources or simply because you don’t fit in the typical model of beauty, then it is less likely that you are going to have children.

Furthermore, I believe that society encourages some even more salient forms of eugenics by reducing access to assisted reproduction techniques. Indeed, at least in Quebec, there has been a strong debate about who should have a free access to these techniques, and one of the predominant opinion was that only “medically infertile couples”, which is usually defined as a typical straight couple having trouble conceiving, should be allowed access. Concretely, it meant that it was considered that a single person capable of bearing a child or a lesbian couple where one of the women is fertile shouldn’t have access to this service on the ground that they could potentially “find a man to do the job”. Similarly, the practice of surrogate mothers, the only alternative for a single infertile person and for a completely infertile couple, especially a gay male couple, to have children has been even more vigorously shunned as woman’s exploitation, even in the cases where the surrogate mom was completely consenting. The general idea behind the discomfort is that “nature shouldn’t be tempered with”, which underlines that there is a natural “law” that people should follow in order to have the “right” to reproduce. Similarly, in many of these cases, it is seen as less of a problem if the people involved can pay the procedure on their own, which would in turn give a reproductive advantage to the wealthy.

Similarly, a commonly held belief is that in order to become a parent, whether through natural reproduction or through assisted reproduction technique, a couple should be able to prove that they can be decent parents. Since it is impossible to know before they actually have children if a person would in fact be a good parent (something which is already difficult to judge when they do have children), it means that such a measure would imply finding absolute factors which would decide if someone is going to be a good or a bad parent. Such factors would in all likeliness be strongly affected by wealth, education and access to care, which would obviously lead to a form of eugenics that wouldn’t be very far from Galton’s original idea.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that any form of eugenic practice should be under strong scrutiny, whether they are the result of a new technology or simply the result of the present access to present reproductive technologies and to parenthood. I’d also like to point out that while embryo selection is a budding technological application (more on this in later posts), selective abortion is a very common practice that is used in cases of multiple pregnancies (where the weakest foetus is often “reduced” to allow the others more chances of survival) and in cases of early detected genetic disabilities such as Down’s syndrome. It is also very commonly practiced on female foetus in some areas of the world where it is believed that having a girl puts too much of a burden on the family. I don’t consider eugenics to be essentially bad, but there is certainly a debate to be made about the present cultural norms that allow forms of it thrive.

To know more:

This is an awesome paper on the implication of eugenics, especially on the ethics of it technological applications (More to come later)

Wilkinson, S., & Garrard, E. (2013). Eugenics and the ethics of selective reproduction.

A paper about surrogacy and consent:

Oakley, J. (1992). Altruistic surrogacy and informed consent. Bioethics, 6(4), 269-287.

Foetal reduction

Depp, R., Macones, G. A., Rosenn, M. F., Turzo, E., Wapner, R. J., & Weinblatt, V. J. (1996). Multifetal pregnancy reduction: evaluation of fetal growth in the remaining twins. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology,174(4), 1233-1240.

Napolitano, R., & Thilaganathan, B. (2010). Late termination of pregnancy and foetal reduction for foetal anomaly. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 24(4), 529-537.

Yes, another wikepedia source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

The ethics of ectogenesis

Last week I have described how I think it would be plausible for us to see in the near future the coming up of partial, and eventually complete ectogenesis, which can be described has nurturing an embryo into a full grow foetus outside the natural womb. Since this is something that will likely become more and more plausible as the techniques for caring about premature babies get more and more sophisticated, it will raise an array of ethical concerns.

On the good side, and it will likely be one of its least controversial applications, it will allow to pretty much save any pregnancy from ending in a miscarriage if the foetus is healthy. While that might seem like a no brainer, even that aspect will require some moral thinking. Miscarriage tend to happen for a reason. Basically, in a natural womb, the foetus is having a fight with the mother’s womb in order to keep residency. If the foetus is too weak, the mom will “win” the fight and reject the baby. This brings into question about the ethics of raising a “weak” baby, one that “nature” would have eliminated. We could hypothesise that in many cases, it will simply be a matter of the mother’s body overreacting and rejecting the baby without any reason, but in those cases where it is actually caused by a weaker foetus, what should be done about it? There might still be a rejection from the natural womb, which would be one of the knacks that we would have to control properly, but what about that moment when we can nurture any foetus, no matter how damaged, into being born? This will bring the perilous ethical concern where a doctor is going to be forced to take the decision on whether the baby should live or not. And if it should live, is it right to let a damaged human into the world while knowing that “nature” would have let go of it before birth? This is a case that will depend on whether you consider the foetus a human being or not, and if you consider you have a moral duty to save them or not. One thing is sure, this subject will have to be discussed, and it will most likely be one of the earliest discussions to happen as technology makes it easier and easier to “save” a prematurely born baby.
Which brings to the next moral issue that such a technology might bring, and that is the issue of what is going to happen with abortion? Unlike in the case of a miscarriage,  the chances are that the foetus can be saved will be much higher, therefore changing the dynamics of the debate between “abortion or complete carriage” and turning it into a debate of what should be done with the aborted foetus. While I expect that many people among the “pro-lifers” will still be strongly biased toward the mother keeping the child at any cost, there will likely be a faction that will start advocating for saving every foetus that has been removed through abortion by ectogenesis. Under some consideration, if the ethical imperative for allowing abortion is that women should have absolute choice over their own body, then it could be interpreted that once out of her body, the foetus is no longer hers and has become an independent human being that should be saved, especially if it is still healthy enough to have a normal development. However, I believe that many of the classical arguments from the abortion debate will still hold: What about the trauma of raped women who will live in the knowledge that the child of their aggressor is out there? What about the life of the child who is going to grow without parents? Is it really wise to live in a world that would generate so many orphans? I personally believe that such an issue could be solved with a solution comparable to the “unplugging” of a comatose patient: Where the family has legal ground to “unplug” such a dependant patient, a mother should have the choice not to use the services of an artificial womb. All these elements lead me to believe that the debate about abortion, while transformed by technology, will still be present.

On a more positive ground, complete ectogenesis would provide a lot of opportunities to people who can’t bear children. Whether it is for a single infertile person or for an infertile couple (gay or straight), this technology will allow bypassing the ethical issues of surrogacy and let these people have a child of their own. While there is no doubt that there will be people who will object to it on the ground that “A child should know the warmth of a mother”, I’m pretty sure every physical elements of a mother’s womb can be simulated to ensure that the foetus is as stimulated as it would have been in a natural one. When it comes to the link between mother and child, I am convinced that it would be possible for parents to visit the growing foetus on a regular basis. If seeing your unborn child slowly turning into a human being with your own eyes doesn’t create a strong bond between parents and children, I don’t know what will. The idea that it takes a woman’s “magic” for a child to grow normally has more ground in mysticism than anything else as long as the technique allows for a good enough reproduction of the natural womb. One legit concern could be that an uncaring parent, or a separating couple, could simply decide to abandon the child to the hospital and never show up on pick up day. However, such an issue would be easily solved by a legally constraining contract that would force any parent who takes the service to care for the child. The one issue that I think would be the most concerning is that of the availability of the technique. If the costs are high, it is likely that only the wealthy will have access to such a technology, therefore making the gap between the rich and the poor class even higher. In my opinion, a society that has the technical means for ectogenesis should also have the social means to make it available to anyone who needs it.

Finally, I think that the most revolutionary application of such a technology, if truly made available for everyone, is to give the potential to any woman to have a child without the health and economic burden of pregnancy. While it would still be necessary to care for the child once it were born, I believe that removing women as essential for child rearing has the potential to dramatically change the way society sees the place of women and would do a lot to bring equality in man-woman relationships. The symbol of child bearing has been repeatedly used to mysticise and oppress women into being the only people capable of child care and such a technology would go a long way to prove that line of thinking wrong. In my opinion, this could possibly be the greatest benefit that ectogenesis would bring to society.

In conclusion, ectogenesis is a procedure that would create many ethical debates among society, but in the end, if it is given as an option to every potential parent, I believe it has the potential to change de world for the better.

The artificial womb

In 1932, Aldous Huxley has made it one of the symbol of his « Brave new world » dystopia, the ultimate sign of dehumanisation in the sight of lines of artificially created human. Through his Fordism type of fake Utopia, humans were just a commodity for society, the more the better, made in chain to better be servient to society. Even nowadays, the idea of ectogenesis, growing a foetus outside the human body raises many an eyebrow. Stuck in the gap between In vitro fertilization, where a human egg is fertilized and the first stage of an embryo and the science of neonatal cares where premature babies are being taken care of, it seems that the process of growing a foetus outside a human body still holds a lot of its sacred imagery, to the point where the concept is never even brought in any circle I know of except for some insightful law makers who feel like we should get ready for the moment when it’s going to be possible to have a baby without a mom.

If the idea seems foreign, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been attempted, and the first attempt was conducted in 1982 in Italy before being basically banned by scared politicians. In order to successfully allow a foetus to grow big enough to be able to live on its own, a number of challenges must be overcome. First, in order to be fed properly, the embryo needs to implant in a tissue that closely resemble the endometrium, which is basically the lining of the uterus that contain the blood vessels that are going to feed the growing foetus. Then comes the obvious issue of providing the tissue, and therefore the foetus with proper nutrition, oxygen and hormone levels until the baby can be safely delivered. There are many way this can be accomplished even by today’s technology. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to grow endometrial cells on a scaffold that mimics the uterus shape and that it could be used to create an artificial uterus.  There have also been experiments where it has been possible to sustain a goat foetus for a few weeks in an incubator that reproduced the uterus and placenta with amniotic fluid and that provided blood. While the technology is not yet quite there, especially when it comes to nutrition and hormone levels given that the balance is so delicate, computer advances in monitoring and controlling the release of such elements could allow for an automatic system that could mimic the environment of a natural womb. One element that wouldn’t be a problem is the oxygenation through an artificial lung, which is already widely used with premature babies and the removal of wastes, which is already available through dialysis. The only thing that is really missing for this to happen is to put enough energy in fine tuning the details of the delicate balance of what it is that allows a foetus to grow to maturity. We might not be there yet, but I can’t help seeing this coming, if only as a method to save prematurely born babies earlier and earlier. In the field, the possibility of liquid ventilation and artificial placenta is already discussed as a mean to make “miscarriage” more and more of a foreign concept.

In conclusion, it seems clear that the gap between the first steps of in vitro fertilization and the treatment of premature babies is growing smaller as technology advances and that the lawmakers will soon be forced to consider the ethical implication of ectogenesis, be it partial or complete. The point is that the artificial womb is within our technological grasp as a species, and it is not that far away. In my next blog post, I will discuss the ethical considerations that such an achievement would bring up. If you have any question or concern regarding the morality of such a technology, make sure to share it with me and I’ll do my best to address them in my next post.

Sources:

Simonstein, F. (2006). Artificial reproduction technologies (RTs)–all the way to the artificial womb?. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 9(3), 359-365.

Bulletti, C., Palagiano, A., Pace, C., Cerni, A., Borini, A., & de Ziegler, D. (2011). The artificial womb. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,1221(1), 124-128.

Transhumanism and social activism

Welcome everyone to this blog of mine. Today is the beginning of 2015 and it would seem that I have taken the initiative to start a blog of my own. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a psychology student in Montreal who is also very active in different activist spheres. One of my strong personal interests is transhumanism. Broadly defined, transhumanism can be said to be an ideology system that aims to better humanity through the use of the technical advances made possible by science. It is basically the idea that the human species and its limitations can be transcended so that it can be freed of suffering. Some of the most obvious concepts of transhumanism are the radical enhancement of human longevity, intelligence or physical capacities. It can be seen as a celebration of the technical advances for humanity. However, it shouldn’t be seen as a blind submission to technology. Indeed, the goal of transhumanism is to celebrate advances that truly enhance humanity in ways that would be deemed impossible (The new I-Phone is therefore not considered a “technical advance” here). Furthermore, it also aims to be critical of these advances and to weigh in their potential consequences. After all, what good would a technology be if it cause more sorrow than happiness?

Technology often seems to be counter intuitive to social advances. After all, it is one of the great marker of social classes, where the rich and wealthy have access to the latest gadget while the poor will struggle only to get a glimpse of it, while endangering it’s basic living capacity. This is absolutely true in the sense that a technology that is not available to everyone equally is not advancing humanity as whole, but only the privileged people who have access to it. Therefore, I believe that transhumanism as a philosophy doesn’t make any sense at all unless it is intertwined with the knowledge that we do indeed live in an unfair world where some people have access to privileges that other people don’t have. Any technology aimed at making the world a better place should do so for everyone and anyone who wishes to benefit from it.

That being said, I strongly believe that technology, when widely available, has the potential to compensate for many of the oppressive systems and allow each individual to live in complete freedom from them. To look at past accomplishments, I don’t think anyone on the progressive side would deny that contraception methods have done a great deal to free women from the burden of forced motherhood. Another obvious example are the technologies that allow disabled people more autonomy. Once again, these technologies are freeing as long as they are closely followed, if not preceded by social changes. Access to them is essential, but it is also essential that people have a true choice when it comes to using them or not. For example, birth control should never be used as an excuse to shame women who chose motherhood, or to threaten their financial situations. In the same idea, a technology that would allow a disabled person to walk more easily shouldn’t be used as an excuse to slow down on making places more wheelchair accessible.

In conclusion, I believe that technological developments have a potential to truly change the world for the better, as long as the humanity in which those developments take place allow it to affect everyone in a positive way. This is what I see as transhumanism. I will attempt to update this blog as much as my busy university student life allows to. Right now, my goal is set as about a post every week. Future will tell me if it was a realistic goal. This blog will most likely consist of both essays about social issues through the lens of transhumanism, even though I might sometimes let go of transhumanism if I feel something needs to be said in a different light (This is my blog, I make the rule!). I also intend to have some posts that go more along the line of vulgarization on some of the research and development that are actually happening.

To all who chose to read me (and everyone else), I’d like to wish you a fantastic year!

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated, especially if you have any question regarding transhumanism or it’s relationship with social activism.

To know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism  (Yes, I am putting a wikipedia source)