Christian Worldview Concepts

Desperately Seeking Perfection: Transhuman's Utopian Dreams

Transhumanism and Bioethics

If the dreams of Transhumanists come true, what might the world of medicine look like? More importantly, what hope is there for anything resembling a normative medical ethic? If the goals of individual enhancement, which is the logical extension of the radical individualism held sacred by old line Humanists and Transhumanists alike, are the only acceptable ends of medicine, who will decide what counts as the common good and upon what ethical grounds will good be decided? Who will decide what constitutes a "normal" person in order to determine what is abnormal? Consider the implications this has for psychology, sociology, law and the disciplines that use the knowledge within each to fashion a "normal" society.

Once again, the heavy hand of rebellious, fallen human beings and their secular scientific hubris jeopardizes the future of humankind. Although we have a growing arsenal of technological marvels to use with the human body, we find ourselves scrambling to figure out how to ethically use them. As science peels away layer upon layer of biological mystery, the loss of moral knowledge in our culture makes it difficult to reach any sort of consensus on whether these new discoveries are beneficial or burdens; perils or promises. As new technologies and new medical interventions and new therapies become part of clinical practice, we find it harder and harder to keep pace with the moral questions that they frequently provoke.

The implications of this expanded technological imperative and the ethical conundrums it produces are never more poignant than they are in the current contestation over embryonic stem cell research. The heart of the ethical debate (and therefore the political debate) is the question of the human embryo; its moral status and what is appropriate in our handling of embryos. The question of the moral status of the human embryo is the most crucial issue in modern bioethics.¹¹

If we look at the history of medicine just since the early 1960s we will find the medical and scientific literature filled with bold claims about the nature of human biology in its earliest stages and, simultaneously, the emergence of a bioethics community all too willing to diminish the humanity of the tiniest humans. Although the issues surrounding Transhumanism transcend abortion, there is no denying that the bioethics and politics of abortion paved the way for the science and politics that fuels its optimism. No one would be arguing for access to the federal piggy bank to fund embryonic stem cell research without first dehumanizing the human embryo, both scientifically and ethically.

Having gone to school on the work of humanist bioethicists who provided ethical succor to a medical community willing to turn its back on two thousand years of Judeo-Christian/Hippocratic tradition, Transhumanists have simply taken secular bioethics to the next level. If individuals are free to "terminate" the lives of fetuses in the womb, which nearly everyone, including those who advocate abortion rights, agree is tragic, why is it a worse tragedy to take useful biological resources from embryos whose demise is certain? Once embryonic stem cell research produces workable clinical therapies, or at least unlocks some of the remaining secrets of embryology which contribute to further experimentation, what argument of sufficient public potency can be made against going all the way to making human beings exactly as we would have them to be?

For Transhumanists, the issue is not a medical one; it is a human rights issue. Perhaps this is itself too modest. Maybe it is even bigger than human rights; it is about who will manage future. Thus, this discussion is an issue that transcends abortion and some of the other moral debates of the 20th Century. This really is a debate about the 21st Century and the centuries beyond. It is not only about what is meant by the term "human being" and what is the moral status of that being, but what sort of medicine shall we humans practice on and with one another. Shall we use some humans to treat the diseases of other human beings? What will be meant by the term human or will we cease to be human as we know it?

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¹¹ Saunders, W.L., "The Human Embryo Debate," in Charles W. Colson and Nigel M. de S. Cameron, editors, Human Dignity in the Biotech Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 115.