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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Genetic Enhancement: Distinctions And Regulation - Page 3
Virginia Mensah
Self-serving enhancement is also significant because it illuminates another major concern about genetic enhancement - the potential social applications of the technology. Enhancement is a problem to the extent that it complicates our existing social structures since, much as in the case of medical power, a diffuse knowledge organizes society (as Lupton might acknowledge). Social structure in this country is contingent upon "power, not as a unitary entity, but a strategic relation which is diffuse and invisible" (Lupton 128). In this social-constructionist sense, a system of social order and expectations saturates present medicine and culture; this "invisible power" permeates an individual's perception of genetic enhancement and, furthermore, creates aversion to it. In other words, the "system" of enhancement allocation gives more privilege to the wealthy (or the wealthy privilege themselves using the system), and because of this considerable and built-in differential of power, access and distribution issues result. As Glannon argues,
The main moral concern about genetic enhancement of physical and mental traits is that it would give some people an unfair advantage over others with respect to competitive goods like beauty, sociability, and intelligence. . . . Enhancement would be unfair because only those who could afford the technology would have access to it, and many people are financially worse off than others through no fault of their own. (97)
Therefore, the end result of genetic enhancement might be the use of the technology exclusively by the wealthy to beget enhanced progeny. This fear likely exists in those who oppose genetic enhancement- the fear that use of enhancement science will further stratify social structure. According to the film Gattaca , use of genes to improve humans will be manifested in the creation of a master race, one that excludes inferior or "normal humans" who were not scientifically programmed (that is, who were products of natural procreation) from society. Wariness concerning the implicit entanglements of science and social roles is not entirely unreasonable since self-serving enhancement would derive from, as well as reproduce, existing social parameters.
These concerns of opponents of enhancement, however, come from current social constructions predicated on the premise of the wealthy possessing all power, knowledge, and economic means. Thus it is the current social distinctions that influence the imprecise, negative view of enhancement. In particular, according to Glenn McGee in The Perfect Baby: Parenthood in the New World of Cloning and Genetics, what these individuals ignore is that somatic and germ-line enhancements and their uses "[do] not uniquely influence the future . . . [their] power is not prefigurative or determinative" (McGee 114). Therefore, although it is possible that wealthy people might be privileged with greater access to genetic technologies, that possibility does not make it an absolute truth. Furthermore, even though these fears constitute valid concerns, they assume an inability to detect and regulate self-serving and therefore illegitimate enhancements from legitimate ones; however, we are neither blind nor powerless toward these distinctions.
The main question to ponder then becomes whether genetic therapies "can be developed for therapeutic uses without increasing the possibility of future application for human genetic enhancement" for selfish purposes ("Staff Background Paper" 4). A logical preliminary answer and basis for regulation would be to maintain medical focus on the treatment of individuals afflicted by disease and disease alone, even if that treatment entails enhancement (i.e. vaccination).