Value: Individuality 1. Ian Wilmut, TIME magazine, January 11, 1999, pg. 75 "Every child should be wanted for itself, as an individual. In making a copy of oneself or some famous person, a parent is deliberately specifying the way he or she wishes that child to develop." Ian Wilmut 2. David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson, Genethics, 1989 "The history of eugenics suggests that once a human characteristic-such as a particular skin color or mutant hemoglobin molecules or poor performance on IQ tests-has been labled a genetic "defect," we can expect voices in society to eventually call for the systematic elimination of those traits in the name of genetic hygiene." --David Suzuki 3. Algeny by Jeremy Rifkin editorial in The New York Times "Whether to Make Perfect Humans,' cc. 1985 "There is no decernible line to be drawn between making inheritable repairs of genetic defects, and improving the species. Once scientists are able to repair genetic defects it will become much harder to argue against adding genes that confer desired qualities, like better health, looks, or brains." --Jeremy Rifkin 4."Everyone wants to be respected and valued for who they are-a unigue, one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-cloned individual." --Sean Covey Criteria: Cost Benefit Analysis 5. BERNARD GERT [PROFESSOR FOR THE STUDY OF ETHICS & HUMAN VALUES, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE], USA TODAY MAGAZINE, JANUARY 1999, P. 28. "However, based on the cited risks, there is insufficient potential benefit to justify any human genetic engineering. Until certain knowledge of the real risks and benefits associated with human genetic engineering has been obtained, the potential risks to all of the future descendants of the patient outweigh any benefit to a very small number of persons who might benefit." 6. Michael W. Fox, The Furturist, February 1986, Scientific Director of the Humane Society of the U.S. "Genetic Engineering: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box?" "We could be on the threshhold not of some biological utopia but of a catastophe." 7. Sheldon Krimsky, Genetic Alchemy, former member of the government's DNA panel. "We have never had a major technological revolution without seeing any hazards associated with it." --Sheldon Krimsky 8. Christopher Delaney, www.bradley.edu/campusorg/scout/archives/032897/pro.html "Genetic engineering raises some... terrifying... prospects." --Christopher Delaney 9. http://www.geocities.com/~togald/ "Sure progress and saving life is good... but at what expense?" Huntington Willard 10. DISCOVER, MAY 1998, PP. 58-64. "After nearly a decade of experimentally transferring genes into human beings with serious disease, the practitioners of gene therapy have yet to cure a single person." Contention One: HGE leads to loss of Individuality 11. The Mennonite Central Committee Canada, Occasional Paper, no.17, "Brief Submitted to the Royal Commision on New Reproductive Technologies," July 1992 "As technologies afford human control over genetic characteristics they create the tendency to demean those persons who retain "correctable" characteristics." --The Mennonite Central Committee 12. Dr. Mekiel Denton, http://www.geocities.com/~togald/ "With the manipulation of genetic material, we open up ourselves to grave dangers, and no matter how much we may test a genetic experiment, the results are different for each person, and could most certainly be morbid." --Dr. Mekiel Denton 13. Jeremy Rifkin, "Human Should Not Be Genetically Redesigned," Genetic Engineering: Opposing Viewpoints, cc. 1990, p.78 "The question, then, is whether or not humanity should begin the process of engineering future generations of human beings by technological design in the labratory. What is the price we pay for embarking on a course whose final goal is the "perfection" fo the human species? How important is it that we eliminate all the imperfections, all the defects?" --Jeremy Rifkin 14. JEREMY RIFKIN [PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION ON ECONOMIC TRENDS], TIKKUN, MAY-JUNE 1998, PP. 33-39. "If diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and cancer are to be prevented by altering the genetic makeup of individuals, why not proceed to other less serious "defects": myopia, color blindness, dyslexia, obesity, short stature? Indeed, what is to preclude a society from deciding that a certain skin color is a disorder? In the end, why would we ever say no to any alteration of the genetic code that might enhance the well-being of our offspring? It would be difficult to imagine parents rejecting genetic modifications that promised to improve, in some way, the opportunities for their progeny." Contention Two: Loss of Individuality hurts society 15. DAVID SHENK, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 1997, PP. 37-43. "If a father wants a blue-eyed, stout-hearted son and is able to pay for the privilege, which will cause no harm to anyone else, what's the problem? Consider the prospect of a pop-genetics culture in which millions choose the same desirable genes. Thousands of years down the line, the diversity in the human gene pool could be diminished, which any potato farmer can tell you is no way to manage a species." 16. Jeremy Rifkin, The Progressive, December 28, 1983 "With the splitting of the atom and now with the splitting of the DNA nucleia, we have reached two technologies that are nwo so inherently destructive to our concept of life and the survivability of life, that we best not entertain them." --Jeremy Rifkin 17. National Council of Churches Synogogue Concil of America and United States Catholic Conference "We are rapidly moving into a new era of danger triggered by the rapid growth of genetic engineering." --excerpt from a letter to President Carter from National Council of Churches Synogogue Concil of America and United States Catholic Conference 18. http://westman.org "I look forward to a future in which our country will limit its scientific advancements to its moral restrictions, its wealth to its wisdom, its power to its purpose." --John F. Kennedy 19. SHARON BEGLEY [COLUMNIST], NEWSWEEK, DECEMBER 28, 1998, P. 68. "One father of a son with a severe congenital illness told The New York Times Magazine about the insurance-company adjuster who grumbled that parents like him expect society to spend millions to keep these "mistakes" alive. Yet these are remarkable children, full of love and wonder, teaching their parents and all who meet them profound lessons about what really counts in a human life." Other: on consequences, not knowing outcomes, outcomes 20. http://www.geocities.com/~togald/ "We know from our experience with a wide range of species that germ line transfer can have some very unexpected consequences. Among these are gross physical abnormalities and birth defects-malformed limbs for instance-and the eventual development of cancer, even in animals that at first seemed to be successfully gene corrected. You might call those consequences "interesting" when you see them in foals or mice... but the same surprises can be nothing short of disastrous when they occur in humans." 21. Dave Stevens, M.D., New Man Magazine, 1998, www.cmds.org/Advancement/Resources/New%20Man%20articles/New_Man_Cloning.html "Using human life merely as a means to an end is also morally unacceptable. People would be created not for their own good but to be used and studied by others." --Dave Stevens 22. http://mercury.dorm.utexas.edu/wwwboard2/messages/286.html "Just as nuclear physicists are not trained to access the effects of radiation on causing cancer, molecular biologists are not... qualified to evaluate the... consequences of releasing genetically-engineered organisms." --Martin Alexander, Cornell University, ecologist 23. CHARLES C. MANN [CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENT, SCIENCE MAGAZINE], FOREIGN POLICY, WINTER 1998, PP. 113-116. "Worse, the process of inserting foreign genes into chromosomes is poorly understood and may be risky. Foreign genes must be smuggled into cells by biochemical "vectors" derived from viruses. Evidence suggests that these vectors can combine with DNA in plants and animals to create new viruses, which in turn can attack other species and even permanently transfer genes into their chromosomes." 24. CHARLES C. MANN [CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENT, SCIENCE MAGAZINE], FOREIGN POLICY, WINTER 1998, PP. 113-116. "Worse, the process of inserting foreign genes into chromosomes is poorly understood and may be risky. Foreign genes must be smuggled into cells by biochemical "vectors" derived from viruses. Evidence suggests that these vectors can combine with DNA in plants and animals to create new viruses, which in turn can attack other species and even permanently transfer genes into their chromosomes." 25. MAE-WAN HO ET AL., THE ECOLOGIST, MAY-JUNE 1998, PP. 146-153. "Gene therapy suffers from all the problems associated with making transgenic organisms. The technology for inserting genes into the genome is hit or miss; there has not been a single case of documented success in gene therapy. On the contrary, severe, nearly fatal immunological reactions have developed to at least one gene therapy vector, while the dangers of generating viruses from gene therapy vectors cannot be lightly dismissed." 26. MAE-WAN HO ET AL., THE ECOLOGIST, MAY-JUNE 1998, PP. 146-153. "The "superpig" engineered with human growth hormone gene turned out arthritic, ulcerous, blind and impotent. The "supersalmon" engineered, again, to grow as fast as possible, with genes belonging to other fish, ended up with big monstrous heads and died from not being able to see, breathe or feed properly." 27. DISCOVER, MAY 1998, PP. 58-64. "We know from our experience with a wide range of species that germ-line gene transfer can have some very unexpected consequences. Among these are gross physical abnormalities and birth defects--malformed limbs, for instance--and the eventual development of cancer, even in animals that at first seemed to be successfully gene-corrected." -- Huntington Willard 28. JEREMY RIFKIN [PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION ON ECONOMIC TRENDS], TIKKUN, MAY-JUNE 1998, PP. 33-39. "For example, the sickle cell recessive trait protects against malaria. The cystic fibrosis recessive gene may play a role in protecting against cholera. To think of recessive traits and single gene disorders, then, as merely errors in the code, in need of reprogramming, is to lose sight of how things really work in the biological kingdom." 29. MAE-WAN HO ET AL., THE ECOLOGIST, MAY-JUNE 1998, PP. 146-153. "First of all, we must dispel the myth that genetic engineering organisms is a precise operation. It is not. The insertion of foreign genes into the host cell genome is a random process, not under the control of the genetic engineer; it is done by means of artificial vectors for horizontal gene transfer. This gives rise to correspondingly random genetic effects, including cancer." Other: Kant, morals 30. Gabriel A. Almond(Prof., Political Science @ Stanford U.) in Progress and its Discontents, cc.82, pg.17 "[There are philosophers such as] Voltaire, Diderot, and Kant who argued that increasing knowledge and technical development did not necessarily produce political and moral improvements." --Gabriel A. Almond 31. CNN poll, March 1, 1997 "89% said yes, it is morally unacceptable to clone humans."