Evolutionary development causes the progressive improvement and specialisation of the species ‘enhancement’ is simply the acceleration of this process and the means by which humans bring their species development under their own conscious control. Change and improvement has been an integral and natural part of the emergence of human beings. Firstly, human beings are the product of evolutionary development. Two dominant strands of argument pervade this field of thought. Transhumanists not only consider ‘enhancement’ acceptable, but positively desirable. Therefore ‘enhancement’ should be accepted and developed legally and publicly, so that it is available to all and so that the risks and benefits can be known by all. Furthermore, if ‘enhancement’ is successfully banned in one jurisdiction, researchers and patients will simply move to another where they can evade regulation. Existing research into fertility and embryology will provide the scientific basis for ‘enhancement’ work. No government regulation, or social pressure will be able to prevent scientists and citizens from pursuing research and ‘enhancements’ which they desire. It is also argued that human ‘enhancement’ is inevitable. These arguments, which are utilitarian in tone, are sometimes accompanied by the more explicitly libertarian conviction that government has no right to interfere in the personal and medical decisions of individual citizens. Being closely involved in the child’s life they, more than anyone else, will have to bear the consequences and risks of choosing to enhance or not to enhance their offspring. Similarly, it is argued, parents are best placed to choose what is in the best interests of their children. Therefore they should be permitted any medical intervention which, as informed patient-consumers, they find desirable.
Patients are better placed than government or the wider community to decide what is in their own best interests. Germline alterations affect human eggs, sperm, or very early stage embryos the children born from these modified cells and all their future offspring will be effected.Ī third potential genre of genetic ‘enhancement’ has also been proposed by Gregory Stock he proposes the development of an artificial chromosome which could be introduced to an embryo, and affect its whole body, but would be removable from the gametes or embryos that produce future generations. Somatic intervention affects only some body cells. Intervention may either be somatic or germline. Genetic: altering the DNA in human cells to change the behaviour of the cells.Performance improving drugs are notorious in competitive sports, but may also be used to improve cognitive function (for example the drug Ritalin improves concentration). Pharmaceutical: the use of drugs to improve performance.Cosmetic surgery: the form of ‘enhancement’ with which we are most familiar it includes breast ‘enhancement’s and face lifts.This ranges from the extreme (such as computer brain implants to improve intelligence), to the mundane (such as the telescope).
Technological: the use of physical technology to improve human abilities.‘Enhancement’ can take many different forms including: However as disease prevention aims to maintain health, and not to change normal bodily functioning, many agree that neither the concept of enhancement nor that of therapy is appropriate to it. Innoculations, for example, improve immune response where there is no pre-existing disease or disability. A further difficulty with the enhancement / therapy distinction concerns disease prevention. This means that non-medical problems, such as aging or shyness, come to be defined and treated as matters for medical intervention. Critics argue that, by undermining any ‘enhancement’/therapy distinction, the WHO definition promotes the ‘medicalisation’ of many normal human conditions. The World Health Organisation, for example, defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This is not easy to establish, and some dispute that such a boundary exists at all. However this assumes that there is a discoverable boundary between health and illness.
A better term may be ‘augmentation’ as it does not so strongly imply that interventions are necessarily beneficial.īioethicists often attempt to distinguish between therapies that enhance, and therapies that merely treat medical disease. Enhancement refers to the ‘improvement’ of human performance, appearance or behaviour through genetic science, medicine, and technology.
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