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Although a few commentators are prepared to argue that we have a moral obligation to enhance human beings, most draw a sharp distinction between therapy and enhancement. When the latter approach is adopted, therapeutic procedures aimed at restoring individuals to normality are applauded, whereas enhancement procedures aimed at improving individuals by providing them with abilities they would not otherwise have possessed are decried. Cut-and-dried as this distinction seems to be, and consoling as it may be to many, it is based on questionable premises-namely, that the boundaries of normality are self-evident and static. It is also based on the presumption that all forms of enhancement are unacceptable.
WALLOWING IN ENHANCEMENT FANTASIES
My use of the term "fantasies" is not meant to deride the possibilities contained within them, nor to entirely dismiss them as untenable. Rather, it denotes the tenor of so much debate within the enhancement domain.
Consider this introduction to an internet site: http://www.genochoice.com/ .
Dear Prospective Parent Thank you for considering GenoChoice to plan the future well-being of you and your family. My name is Dr Elizabeth Preatner, a prenatal geneticist and embryologist here at GenoChoice. Using our state-of-the-art technologies, you can quite possibly ensure that your child's life may be free of such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease-as well as conditions like obesity, aggression, and dyslexia. And you can even specifically choose genes that may determine favorable characteristics in your child.
Such claims are clearly an unrealistic hoax, based on an ill-informed belief in genetic determinism and an overestimation of scientific possibilities. Manipulating genes to achieve a specific outcome is much more difficult than many assume and will probably never achieve the desired result. 1 We may look with disdain at such foibles, and yet they feed the imagination of many.
Joel Garreau, author of Radical evolution: the promise and peril of enhancing our minds, our bodies-and what it means to be human 2 writes:
We are at a turning point in history. For milleniums our technologies ... have been aimed at modifying our environment. Now, for the first time, our technologies are increasingly aimed inward-at altering our minds, memories, metabolisms, personalities, and progeny. This is not some science fiction future. Inexorable increases in ingenuity are opening vistas, especially in...