hardship, f or instance, the damage to the mother's future is
certain. True, her value- filled, meaningful future is granted - but
so is the detrimental effect that the fetus will have on it, once
born. This certainty cannot be balanced by the UNCERTAIN value-filled
future life of the embryo. Always, preferring an uncertain good to a
certain evil is morally wrong. But surely this is a quantitative
matter - not a qualitative one. Certain, limited aspects of the rest
of the mother's life will be adversely effected (and can be
ameliorated by society's helping hand and intervention) if she does
have the baby. The decision not to have it is both qualitatively and
qualitatively different. It is to deprive the unborn of all the
aspects of all his future life - in which he might well have
experienced happiness, values, and meaning.
The questions whether the fetus is a Being or a growth of cells,
conscious in any manner, or utterly unconscious, able to value his
life and to want them - are all but irrelevant. He has the potential
to lead a happy, meaningful, value-filled life, similar to ours, very
much as a one minute old baby does. The contract between him and his
mother is a service provision contract. She provides him with goods
and services that he requires in order to materialize his
potential. It sounds very much like many other human contracts. And
this contract continue well after pregnancy has ended and birth
given.
Consider education: children do not appreciate its importance or value
its potential - still, it is enforced upon them because we, who are
capable of those feats, want them to have the tools that they will
need in order to develop their potential. In this and many other
respects, the human pregnancy continues well into the fourth year of
life (physiologically it continues in to the second year of life - see
"Born Alien"). Should the location of the pregnancy (in uterus, in
vivo) determine its future? If a mother has the right to abort at
will, why should the mother be denied her right to terminate the "
pregnancy" AFTER the fetus emerges and the pregnancy continues OUTSIDE
her womb? Even after birth, the woman's body is the main source of
food to the baby and, in any case, she has to endure physical hardship
to raise the child. Why not extend the woman's ownership of her body
and right to it further in time and space to the post-natal period?
Contracts to provide goods and services (always at a personal cost to
the provider) are the commonest of contracts. We open a business. We
sell a software application, we publish a book - we engage in helping
others to materialize their potential. We should always do so
willingly and reasonably - otherwise the contracts that we sign will
be null and void. But to deny anyone his capacity to materialize his
potential and the goods and services that he needs to do so - after a
valid contract was entered into - is immoral. To refuse to provide a
service or to condition it provision (Mother: " I will provide the
goods and services that I agreed to provide to this fetus under this
contract only if and when I benefit from such provision") is a
violation of the contract and should be penalized. Admittedly, at
times we have a right to choose to do the immoral (because it has not
been codified as illegal) - but that does not turn it into moral.
Still, not every immoral act involving the termination of life can be
classified as murder. Phenomenology is deceiving: the acts look the
same (cessation of life functions, the prevention of a future). But
murder is the intentional termination of the life of a human who
possesses, at the moment of death, a consciousness (and, in most
cases, a free will, especially the will not to die). Abortion is the
intentional termination of a life which has the potential to develop
into a person with consciousness and free will. Philosophically, no
identity can be established between potential and actuality. The
destruction of paints and cloth is not tantamount (not to say
identical) to the destruction of a painting by Van Gogh, made up of
these very elements. Paints and cloth are converted to a painting
through the intermediacy and agency of the Painter. A cluster of cells
a human makes only through the agency of Nature.
Surely, the destruction of the painting materials constitutes an
offence against the Painter. In the same way, the destruction of the
fetus constitutes an offence against Nature. But there is no denying
that in both cases, no finished product was eliminated. Naturally,
this becomes less and less so (the severity of the terminating act
increases) as the process of creation advances.
Classifying an abortion as murder poses numerous and insurmountable
philosophical problems.
No one disputes the now common view that the main crime committed in
aborting a pregnancy - is a crime against potentialities. If so, what
is the philosophical difference between aborting a fetus and
destroying a sperm and an egg? These two contain all the information
(=all the potential) and their destruction is philosophically no less
grave than the destruction of a fetus. The destruction of an egg and a
sperm is even more serious philosophically: the creation of a fetus
limits the set of all potentials embedded in the genetic material to
the one fetus created. The egg and sperm can be compared to the famous
wave function (state vector) in quantum mechanics - the represent
millions of potential final states (=millions of potential embryos and
lives). The fetus is the collapse of the wave function: it represents
a much more limited set of potentials. If killing an embryo is murder
because of the elimination of potentials - how should we consider the
intentional elimination of many more potentials through masturbation
and contraception?
The argument that it is difficult to say which sperm cell will
impregnate the egg is not serious. Biologically, it does not matter -
they all carry the same genetic content. Moreover, would this
counter-argument still hold if, in future, we were be able to identify
the chosen one and eliminate only it? In many religions (Catholicism)
contraception is murder. In Judaism, masturbation is "the corruption
of the seed" and such a serious offence that it is punishable by the
strongest religious penalty: eternal ex-communication ("Karet").
If abortion is indeed murder how should we resolve the following moral
dilemmas and questions (some of them patently absurd):
Is a natural abortion the equivalent of manslaughter (through
negligence)?
Do habits like smoking, drug addiction, vegetarianism - infringe upon
the right to life of the embryo? Do they constitute a violation of the
contract?
Reductio ad absurdum: if, in the far future, research will
unequivocally prove that listening to a certain kind of music or
entertaining certain thoughts seriously hampers the embryonic
development - should we apply censorship to the Mother?
Should force majeure clauses be introduced to the Mother-Embryo
pregnancy contract? Will they give the mother the right to cancel the
contract? Will the embryo have a right to terminate the
contract? Should the asymmetry persist: the Mother will have no right
to terminate - but the embryo will, or vice versa?
Being a rights holder, can the embryo (=the State) litigate against
his Mother or Third Parties (the doctor that aborted him, someone who
hit his mother and brought about a natural abortion) even after he
died?
Should anyone who knows about an abortion be considered an accomplice
to murder?
If abortion is murder - why punish it so mildly? Why is there a debate
regarding this question? "Thou shalt not kill" is a natural law, it
appears in virtually every legal system. It is easily and immediately
identifiable. The fact that abortion does not "enjoy" the same legal
and moral treatment says a lot.
In Our Own Image
The Debate about Cloning
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
There are two types of cloning. One involves harvesting stem cells
from embryos ("therapeutic cloning"). These are the biological
equivalent of a template. They can develop into any kind of mature
functional cell and thus help cure many degenerative and auto-immune
diseases.
The other kind of cloning is much derided in popular culture - and
elsewhere - as the harbinger of a Brave, New World. A nucleus from any
cell of a donor is embedded in an egg whose own nucleus has been
removed. The egg is then implanted in a woman's womb and a cloned baby
is born nine months later. Biologically, the cloned infant is a
replica of the donor.
Cloning is often confused with other advances in bio-medicine and
bio-engineering - such as genetic selection. It cannot - in itself -
be used to produce "perfect humans" or select sex or other traits.
Hence, some of the arguments against cloning are either specious or
fuelled by ignorance.
It is true, though, that cloning, used in conjunction with other
bio-technologies, raises serious bio-ethical questions.
Scare scenarios of humans cultivated in sinister labs as sources of
spare body parts, "designer babies", "master races", or "genetic sex
slaves" - formerly the preserve of B sci-fi movies - have invaded
mainstream discourse.
Still, cloning touches upon Mankind's most basic fears and hopes. It
invokes the most intractable ethical and moral dilemmas. As an
inevitable result, the debate is often more passionate than informed.
Right to Life Arguments
According to cloning's detractors, the nucleus removed from the egg
could otherwise have developed into a human being. Thus, removing the
nucleus amounts to murder.
It is a fundamental principle of most moral theories that all human
beings have a right to life. The existence of a right implies
obligations or duties of third parties towards the right-holder. One
has a right AGAINST other people. The fact that one possesses a
certain right - prescribes to others certain obligatory behaviours and
proscribes certain acts or omissions. This Janus-like nature of rights
and duties as two sides of the same ethical coin - creates great
confusion. People often and easily confuse rights and their attendant
duties or obligations with the morally decent, or even with the
morally permissible. What one MUST do as a result of another's right -
should never be confused with one SHOULD or OUGHT to do morally (in
the absence of a right).
But is the egg - alive?
This question is NOT equivalent to the ancient quandary of "when does
life begin". Life crystallizes, at the earliest, when an egg and a
sperm unite (i.e., at the moment of fertilization). Life is not a
potential - it is a process triggered by an event. An unfertilized egg
is neither a process - nor an event. It does not even possess the
potential to become alive unless and until it merges with a sperm.
Should such merger not occur - it will never develop life.
The potential to become X is not the ontological equivalent of
actually being X, nor does it spawn moral and ethical rights and
obligations pertaining to X. The transition from potential to being is
not trivial, nor is it automatic, or inevitable, or independent of
context. Atoms of various elements have the potential to become an egg
(or, for that matter, a human being) - yet no one would claim that
they ARE an egg (or a human being), or that they should be treated as
one (i.e., with the same rights and obligations).
Moreover, it is the donor nucleus embedded in the egg that endows it
with life - the life of the cloned baby. Yet, the nucleus is usually
extracted from a muscle or the skin. Should we treat a muscle or a
skin cell with the same reverence the critics of cloning wish to
accord an unfertilized egg?
Is this the main concern?
The main concern is that cloning - even the therapeutic kind - will
produce piles of embryos. Many of them - close to 95% with current
biotechnology - will die. Others can be surreptitiously and illegally
implanted in the wombs of "surrogate mothers".
It is patently immoral, goes the precautionary argument, to kill so
many embryos. Cloning is such a novel technique that its success rate
is still unacceptably low. There are alternative ways to harvest stem
cells - less costly in terms of human life. If we accept that life
begins at the moment of fertilization, this argument is valid. But it
also implies that - once cloning becomes safer and scientists more
adept - cloning itself should be permitted.
This is anathema to those who fear a slippery slope. They abhor the
very notion of "unnatural" conception. To them, cloning is a
narcissistic act and an ignorant and dangerous interference in
nature's sagacious ways. They would ban procreative cloning,
regardless of how safe it is. Therapeutic cloning - with its mounds of
discarded fetuses - will allow rogue scientists to cross the boundary
between permissible (curative cloning) and illegal (baby cloning).
Why should Baby Cloning be Illegal?
Cloning's opponents object to procreative cloning because it can be
abused to design babies, skew natural selection, unbalance nature,
produce masters and slaves and so on. The "argument from abuse" has
been raised with every scientific advance - from in vitro
fertilization to space travel.
Every technology can be potentially abused. Television can be either a
wonderful educational tool - or an addictive and mind numbing pastime.
Nuclear fission is a process that yields both nuclear weapons and
atomic energy. To claim, as many do, that cloning touches upon the
"heart" of our existence, the "kernel" of our being, the very
"essence" of our nature - and thus threatens life itself - would be
incorrect.
There is no "privileged" form of technological abuse and no hierarchy
of potentially abusive technologies. Nuclear fission tackles natural
processes as fundamental as life. Nuclear weapons threaten life no
less than cloning. The potential for abuse is not a sufficient reason
to arrest scientific research and progress - though it is a necessary
condition.
Some fear that cloning will further the government's enmeshment in the
healthcare system and in scientific research. Power corrupts and it is
not inconceivable that governments will ultimately abuse and misuse
cloning and other biotechnologies. Nazi Germany had a state-sponsored
and state-mandated eugenics program in the 1930's.
Yet, this is another variant of the argument from abuse. That a
technology can be abused by governments does not imply that it should
be avoided or remain undeveloped. This is because all technologies -
without a single exception - can and are abused routinely - by
governments and others. This is human nature.
Fukuyama raised the possibility of a multi-tiered humanity in which
"natural" and "genetically modified" people enjoy different rights and
privileges. But why is this inevitable? Surely this can easily by
tackled by proper, prophylactic, legislation?
All humans, regardless of their pre-natal history, should be treated
equally. Are children currently conceived in vitro treated any
differently to children conceived in utero? They are not. There is no
reason that cloned or genetically-modified children should belong to
distinct legal classes.
Unbalancing Nature
It is very anthropocentric to argue that the proliferation of
genetically enhanced or genetically selected children will somehow
unbalance nature and destabilize the precarious equilibrium it
maintains. After all, humans have been modifying, enhancing, and
eliminating hundreds of thousands of species for well over 10,000
years now. Genetic modification and bio-engineering are as natural as
agriculture. Human beings are a part of nature and its manifestation.
By definition, everything they do is natural.
Why would the genetic alteration or enhancement of one more species -
homo sapiens - be of any consequence? In what way are humans "more
important" to nature, or "more crucial" to its proper functioning? In
our short history on this planet, we have genetically modified and
enhanced wheat and rice, dogs and cows, tulips and orchids, oranges
and potatoes. Why would interfering with the genetic legacy of the
human species be any different?
Effects on Society
Cloning - like the Internet, the television, the car, electricity, the
telegraph, and the wheel before it - is bound to have great social
consequences. It may foster "embryo industries". It may lead to the
exploitation of women - either willingly ("egg prostitution") or
unwillingly ("womb slavery"). Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and
psychiatrist, quoted in "The Economist", says:
"(Cloning) means the routinisation, the commercialisation, the
commodification of the human embryo".
Exploiting anyone unwillingly is a crime, whether it involves cloning
or white slavery. But why would egg donations and surrogate motherhood
be considered problems? If we accept that life begins at the moment of
fertilization and that a woman owns her body and everything within it
- why should she not be allowed to sell her eggs or to host another's
baby and how would these voluntary acts be morally repugnant? In any
case, human eggs are already being bought and sold and the supply far
exceeds the demand.
Moreover, full-fledged humans are routinely "routinised,
commercialized, and commodified" by governments, corporations,
religions, and other social institutions. Consider war, for instance -
or commercial advertising. How is the "routinisation,
commercialization, and commodification" of embryos more reprehensible
that the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of
fully formed human beings?
Curing and Saving Life
Cell therapy based on stem cells often leads to tissue rejection and
necessitates costly and potentially dangerous immunosuppressive
therapy. But when the stem cells are harvested from the patient
himself and cloned, these problems are averted. Therapeutic cloning
has vast untapped - though at this stage still remote - potential to
improve the lives of hundreds of millions.
As far as "designer babies" go, pre-natal cloning and genetic
engineering can be used to prevent disease or cure it, to suppress
unwanted traits, and to enhance desired ones. It is the moral right of
a parent to make sure that his progeny suffers less, enjoys life more,
and attains the maximal level of welfare throughout his or her life.
That such technologies can be abused by over-zealous, or mentally
unhealthy parents in collaboration with avaricious or unscrupulous
doctors - should not prevent the vast majority of stable, caring, and
sane parents from gaining access to them.
Ethical Relativism and Absolute Taboos
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
I. Taboos
II. Incest
III. Suicide
IV. Race
V. Moral Relativism
I. Taboos
Taboos regulate our sexual conduct, race relations, political
institutions, and economic mechanisms - virtually every realm of our
life. According to the 2002 edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica",
they are "the prohibition of an action or the use of an object based
on ritualistic distinctions of them either as being sacred and
consecrated or as being dangerous, unclean, and accursed."
Jews are instructed to ritually cleanse themselves after having been
in contact with a Torah scroll - or a corpse. This association of the
sacred with the accursed and the holy with the depraved is the key to
the guilt and sense of danger which accompany the violation of a
taboo.
In Polynesia, where the term originated, "taboos could include
prohibitions on fishing or picking fruit at certain seasons; food
taboos that restrict the diet of pregnant women; prohibitions on
talking to or touching chiefs or members of other high social classes;
taboos on walking or traveling in certain areas, such as forests; and
various taboos that function during important life events such as
birth, marriage, and death."
Political correctness is a particularly pernicious kind of taboo
enforcement. It entails an all-pervasive self-censorship coupled with
social sanctions. Consider the treatment of the right to life, incest,
suicide, and race.
II. Incest
In contemporary thought, incest is invariably associated with child
abuse and its horrific, long-lasting, and often irreversible
consequences. But incest is far from being the clear-cut or monolithic
issue that millennia of taboo imply. Incest with minors is a private -
and particularly egregious - case of pedophilia or statutory rape. It
should be dealt with forcefully. But incest covers much more besides
these criminal acts.
Incest is the ethical and legal prohibition to have sex with a related
person or to marry him or her - even if the people involved are
consenting and fully informed adults. Contrary to popular mythology,
banning incest has little to do with the fear of genetic diseases.
Even genetically unrelated parties (a stepfather and a stepdaughter)
can commit incest.
Incest is also forbidden between fictive kin or classificatory kin
(that belong to the same matriline or patriline). In certain societies
(certain Native American tribes, or the Chinese) it is sufficient to
carry the same family name (i.e., to belong to the same clan) to
render a relationship incestuous. Clearly, eugenic considerations have
little to do with incest.
Moreover, the use of contraceptives means that incest does not need to
result in pregnancy and the transmission of genetic material.
Inbreeding (endogamous) or straightforward incest is the norm in many
life forms, even among primates (e.g., chimpanzees). It was also quite
common until recently in certain human societies - the Hindus, for
instance, or many Native American tribes, and royal families
everywhere.
Nor is the taboo universal. In some societies, incest is mandatory or
prohibited, according to one's social class (Bali). In others, the
Royal House started a tradition of incestuous marriages, later
emulated by the lower classes (Ancient Egypt). The list is long and it
serves to demonstrate the diversity of attitudes towards this most
universal practice.
The more primitive and aggressive the society, the more strict and
elaborate the set of incest prohibitions and the fiercer the penalties
for their violation. The reason may be economic. Incest interferes
with rigid algorithms of inheritance in conditions of extreme scarcity
(for instance, of land and water) and consequently leads to
survival-threatening internecine disputes.
Freud said that incest provokes horror because it touches upon our
forbidden, ambivalent sexual cravings and aggression towards members
of our close family. Westermark held that "familiarity breeds
repulsion" and that the incest taboo - rather than counter inbred
instincts - simply reflects emotional reality. Both ignored the fact
that the incest taboo is learned - not inherent.
We can easily imagine a society where incest is extolled, taught, and
practiced - and out-breeding is regarded with horror and revulsion.
The incestuous marriages among members of the royal households of
Europe were intended to preserve the familial property and expand the
clan's territory. They were normative, not aberrant. Marrying an
outsider was considered abhorrent.
III. Suicide
Self-sacrifice, avoidable martyrdom, engaging in life risking
activities, refusal to prolong one's life through medical treatment,
euthanasia, overdosing, and self-destruction that is the result of
coercion - are all closely related to suicide. They all involve a
deliberately self-inflicted death.
But while suicide is chiefly intended to terminate a life - the other
acts are aimed at perpetuating, strengthening, and defending values or
other people. Many are appalled by the choice implied in suicide - of
death over life. They feel that it demeans life - i.e., abnegates its
meaning.
Life's meaning - the outcome of active selection by the individual -
is either external (i.e., God's plan) or internal (i.e., the outcome
of an arbitrary frame of reference).
Our life is rendered meaningful only by integrating into an eternal
thing, process, design, or being. Suicide makes life trivial because
the act is not natural - not part of the eternal framework, the
undying process, the timeless cycle of birth and death. Suicide is a
break with eternity.
Sidgwick said that only conscious (i.e., intelligent) beings can
appreciate values and meanings. So, life is significant to conscious,
intelligent, though finite, beings - because it is a part of some
eternal goal, plan, process, thing, design, or being. Suicide flies in
the face of Sidgwick's dictum. It is a statement by an intelligent and
conscious being about the meaninglessness of life.