Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society

12 Better Solutions

Better Solutions 12 A complete embargo on genetic enhancement is as impractical as it is unenforceable. Researchers will perfect enhancement technologies even if they are barred from receiving federal funds for doing so. Perhaps not as quickly, but eventually. People will illegally enhance themselves and their children. Not everyone, perhaps , and not as many as if enhancements were freely available to anyone with the money to buy them, but enough to transform a ban into a repeat of Prohibition, with the addition of far more government intrusion into people’s hitherto private lives and reproductive decision making. But the real problem with a total ban is not so much that it would be impossible to enforce, but that those who took the risk of thwarting the law would most likely do so for their own benefit. For the most part, the people who became enhanced would not be upstanding public citizens, but criminals.The wealthier criminals, to be sure, but criminals nonetheless. People who felt that their wealth entitled them to purchase optimal characteristics for themselves and their children even though the majority of society had 156 Wondergenes decided that the dangers were too extreme. Selfish people. After all, if you were going to break the law and risk punishment, why would you do it to help others? So an attempt at a total ban would have the perverse effect of conferring the benefits of enhancement—intelligence, beauty, power—only on the criminal element in our society, while leaving the law-abiding majority at a disadvantage. There is a way to avoid this, or at least make it less pronounced. Instead of banning genetic enhancement altogether, allow it to be used by the virtuous for virtuous deeds. In other words, don’t ban its use, but regulate it. Channel its advantages so they are employed for the good of society. How can this be accomplished? ENHANCEMENT LICENSING There are many instances in which we grant certain individuals extraordinary powers and privileges, but only under certain conditions .Take doctors.They can prescribe potent, often dangerous, medications.They can invade the most intimate parts of the body. They can poke holes in you with needles and, during surgery, lay you open with a knife. They can even kill you—ostensibly with permission, as in Oregon under its physician-assisted suicide law, but sometimes apparently without consent, as when they administer fatal doses of morphine during what is euphemistically called “double-effect euthanasia” and “terminal sedation.” They can do all this and not go to jail, much less the gas chamber, because they have a license to practice medicine. But the license to practice medicine comes with conditions. Physicians must use their powers to heal, not to hurt. In their delivery of services, they must conform to a professional standard of care. They may not extract sexual favors from their patients. They must keep patient confidences secret. They are not allowed to divert narcotics and other dangerous drugs to street use. And so on. If they fail to adhere to these conditions, if they violate the terms of their license, they lose the license, and along with it, their special privileges. They might even go to jail. Or the gas chamber. The same is true of other professionals. Lawyers, for example, are the only people who can represent others in a court of law. 157 Better Solutions Besides defendants, jurors, and witnesses, they are the only persons who are entitled to venture beyond the “bar”—the rail that divides the front of a courtroom from the seating area for spectators —and approach the bench. Only lawyers can furnish legal opinions, which can make or break a billion-dollar corporate takeover or the sale of your home. They cannot be compelled to reveal a client’s secret even if the secret is that the client has committed a crime. But again, they enjoy these special privileges only so long as they exercise them for the public good. If they aid criminals in the commission of a crime, if they knowingly file lawsuits with no credible foundation, if they lie, cheat, or steal, they lose their licenses . Licensing is used in a vast number of situations besides regulating the practices of professionals. We license certain individuals to possess or carry guns, to drive cars, taxis, and commercial vehicles. Businesses require licenses. Liquor stores must have them too. Sometimes the...