Biopolitics, undoubtedly, is a very sensitive subject to many; I can understand both sides of the argument for or against bioengineering, and everything encompassed by biopolitics, but for the sake of this argument, I’m simply going to go against it, particularly with the concept of reproductive engineering. I’m not too fond of the idea of parents being able to select the type of child to whom they will give birth. It seems as though they’re almost trying to play God, that medicine is trying to play God in many aspects, and that people have little respect for the true nature of humans or the natural process in reproduction and evolution.
I’ve paid much attention to the topic of societal shallowness in the past few years, wherein worth is based upon appearance to a large degree. Worth, it seems, is attainable only on a physical level. Even intelligence nowadays seems shallow in some respects, as qualifications and levels of education are almost a show-and-tell kind of concept.
And now, we have the idea of selective reproduction. Parents choosing the looks, intellect and physical abilities (or disabilities, in the case of the deaf embryo) with little concern for what the unborn child may or may not want. Sure, we might be able to assume that a child would want good looks, strength, and knowledge—everything to make the “perfect” human. But think about this: how might a child feel, once they’ve matured enough to understand the details, about the story behind their conception, that they’re not a truly natural production, but an engineered being, namely, a “test tube” baby. And who is to say that something might not go wrong in the process? As Rose states in his article An Emergent Form of Life?, “While it may be true that many of the phenomena of life—from reproduction to emotion—now seem to be understandable as mechanisms, we are a long way from being able to re-engineer them at will…” Even with the best intentions, we have not mastered the art of creating new life forms and reproducing them into full functional, stable beings.
This is where I have the problem: humans, medicine, bioengineering, and biopolitics—all are attempting in some way or another to change, alter, or completely remodel human existence. It’s reminiscent of a certain culture’s attempt at creating the so-called master race, but instead of elimination, it has simply come down to reconfiguring the children that are to be born into an engineered body.
I’m not fighting in a religious sense more than I am fighting in a naturalistic sense, that we are natural beings—biological beings—as are all other species brought into this earth through a natural reproduction. Some will live, some will not. In my opinion, it is simply not ethical to tinker with what is naturally occurring in this world. In this respect, lengthened limbs, Ritalin, Prozac, plastic surgery, and any other form of synthetic existence go against nature in the harshest way. SSRI’s in a pill can never give the true feeling of happiness, and missing limbs or lengthened limbs or bionic eyes turn the human form into a clockwork orange. For those who have read the book or seen the movie, you might know about this concept, but for those who haven’t, a clockwork orange is simply an organism, seemingly juicy and colorful with life, that is only a combination of cogwheels and springs; it is a deception. Think of the terminator. Think of Avatar. The ideas are all around us. True, medicine can help, surgery can improve self-esteem, and my argument against these things may seem cruel in and of itself. But I’m simply arguing for poor mother nature (cue guilt through personification) and the ways in which we’re defying her, making her seem less brilliant, less perfect, always having to change her creations to make things “better.” This really only seems like a whole new chapter to Darwinism, “Descent Through Technological Modification.”
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