Tragic Necessities: Cosmetic Surgery and Designer Babies

My apologies for the late post-- as the semester draws to a close, my stress levels go through the roof and my migraines become more frequent, which certainly makes studying a bit more difficult.

Our society does not accept that some afflictions will inevitably befall a certain percentage of our population. We want to fix it; we want to make the playing field equal for those afflicted as those who are not. Unfortunately, there will always be those with the resources to use those same means to make the playing field uneven again.

Cosmetic surgery was not always a method for the vain. The practice likely began with the Roman Empire, who used simple reconstructive surgical methods to repair war wounds among its fighting men, such as repairs to damaged earlobes. Cataract surgery and rhinoplasty have their origins here, (though they certainly differ from the gentler procedures we know of today!), and in the nineteenth century, advances in sterile technique allowed repairs to cleft palates, mastectomies, and skin grafts. With the advent of WWI, damage wrought by more modern weapons brought about even more advances in surgery. Soldiers returning home with disfiguring facial injuries or chemical burns were operated on so they could look much as they did before shipping out--how could we allow them to suffer the rest of their lives after they had already sacrificed so much?

This mindset persists when one thinks about many of the common congenital illnesses that afflict our newborn children as well-- if we are able to select for genes that are "healthy", we can prevent them from having to experience Huntington's Chorea, or Phenylketonuria; diseases that will cut our beloved children's lives short. Naturally, these tools (and all tools, really) can be used for controversial purposes as well as for those universally accepted as "good". Because we entrust the parents as the ultimate authority on what is good for their child, the parents may choose to screen their child for traits we would never allow for our own children. Deaf child? Dwarf child? If one can select it out, one can select it in.

So who makes the call as to whether these tools are being used for good or evil? Society likes to make such calls; but it is not society who gets to choose the use for the tools in the first place. This dissonance goes to the very heart of biopolitics, with constantly shifting societal moral codes determining which applications of biotechnology are "good", and which are "bad". Facial reconstruction for a war veteran to allow him to breathe normally again? Good. Facial reconstruction for a celebrity who wants a prettier nose and plump lips? Bad. Genetic screening for PKU? Good. Screening for blue eyes? Bad.

Ultimately, society will be dragged kicking and screaming into a future where the status quo no longer applies. The implications of our newfound power to choose not to allow Huntington's disease to run rampant also paves the way for the more questionable practices to take place, and it is the rich who will nearly always benefit first and most, for they have the means necessary and the resources to make such decisions while the rest of the proletariat are stuck allowing nature to take its course. We struggle to even the playing field, but the playing field can never truly be even.