Individual Rights: Minority Imposing its Views on Majority

This from Jesse Reynolds at Biopolitical Times (repsonding to this from Ron Bailey) is one of the more stupid democratic totalitarian arguments I’ve heard (and yes, it does mention the Peter “The Root of All Evil” Thiel): Public opinion surveys show that an overwhelming 85 to 90 percent of Americans are opposed to human reproductive [...]

Utopian Surgery and the Wisdom of Repugnance

Al Roth points to this Boston Globe story about the initial opposition to anaesthetic. I’m reminded of this great essay by David Pearce, which nicely draws out the lessons for bioethical thinking today. The introduction: Before the advent of anaesthesia, medical surgery was a terrifying prospect. Its victims could suffer indescribable agony. The utopian prospect of surgery [...]

The Confused Idea of ‘Eugenics’

Whenever someone uses the word ‘eugenics’ to refer to anything other than the political movement, popular in the twentieth century, with the aim of using state power to improve ‘the race,’ there’s a good chance they’ll end up very confused. Like ‘fascism,’ ‘eugenics’ today functions as little more than a slur, and is normally used [...]

Who Wants to Live Forever?

Mike Treder reports some interesting poll results from Reader’s Digest: So much for eternal youth! Most respondents to our latest global survey are just fine with their limited shelf life here on earth. Not even the younger crowd consistently chooses immortality. In fact, more than 50 percent of those 45 and under in seven countries [...]

Is Eugenics Inevitable?

This post from Daniel MacArthur at Genetic Future raises some interesting questions: The argument is straightforward: allowing a child to be born with a disease that will result in a lifetime of suffering and premature death, when a simple screening test could prevent it, is completely morally equivalent to allowing a child to die of [...]

Quote of the Day: Healthism Edition

Health education should provide useful, factual information to enhance rational decision-making, that is, reasoned choice. One of the possible outcomes of such a decision is to ignore the health warning and to accept the risk. Health promotionists would see such an outcome as the failure of their efforts and would describe such a choice as [...]

Designer Babies and Eugenics

From Human Enhancement and Biopolitics: With all the cries that selecting one’s babies will lead to a situation like that portrayed in Gattaca, nobody seems to realise that the movie’s portrayal of public coercion to have a particular sort of baby is already happening. The only difference is the ’sort’ of baby that parents are being pushed, [...]