The Deconstruction of Death.

• Author: Ikle, Fred C.

The Coming Politics of Biotechnology

SINCE THE eighteenth century, a succession of technological revolutions has transformed the human condition and the course of history. First, the steam engine took center stage. By the end of the nineteenth century, the multifaceted applications of electricity had begun to change the world. During the second half of the last century, computer technology transformed scientific research, economic activity, military forces and nearly every aspect of human affairs. Now the mapping of the genome [1] signals that a new wave of technology-driven change is coming.

The genome project highlights the recent progress in genetics and the other life sciences, which in turn inspires and sustains continuing advances in biotechnology. By promising to satisfy the most elemental human yearnings--the desire for good health and for the postponement of death--biotechnology attracts the kind of deep-rooted political support and strong financial backing that few other fields of science enjoy. It can therefore maintain a momentum capable of generating a stream of scientific-technological developments that governments and international organizations will find hard to control. And there is now little doubt about where this is leading: to human intervention in the process of evolution itself.

Some of these developments, it can be safely predicted, will pose new and fundamental challenges to prevailing religious doctrines and teachings. Longevity, combined with good health, is a goal that democratic governments cannot oppose. Who would want to block the path to possible eradication of hereditary sickle cell anemia, or to medications that promise a cure to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases? But when such universally acceptable goals have been reached, science will not come to a full stop, even if religious organizations, ethics advocates or politicians should want to draw a line beyond which human nature must not be altered.

The good and the bad that the era of the genome promises to bring will often be inseparable. Consider this simple example: experts predict confidently that progress in biotechnology will make it possible, probably well before the end of this century, to extend people's active life span by twenty years or more. This, most people would agree, will be a good thing. But if this prediction comes true, one consequence will be that entrenched dictators will live longer, thus postponing the leadership successions that until now have so often offered the sole means of relief from tyrannical regimes. Stalin, for one, comes to mind as a fellow who would not have volunteered to retire had his doctors been able to keep him active and fit to the age of, say, 120. If he could have benefited from the medical technology that seems likely to be available a few decades hence, he would have ruled his evil empire until just about now, and his unfortunate subjects would have suffered many more campaigns of terror. And if biotechn ology could have offered Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping the same extended life span, Deng would still be waiting in the wings for an opportunity to implement his reforms.

The Genome and Globalization

GLOBALIZATION can only hasten the era of the genome. The Internet is facilitating the spread of the latest scientific discoveries in genetics and biotechnology, while the pressures for free trade are breaking down the barriers that Luddite movements erect to keep out products derived from these discoveries. When legislators in one country pass a law to prohibit an application of biotechnology that they judge to be politically incorrect, they will have to contend with the virtual certainty that other countries will happily exploit the new application. For instance, should the U.S. Congress decide to prohibit implants for human patients of organs derived from cloned sheep or pigs, Britain and Japan might allow the production and use of these "lifesaving" implants. In the long run, the approach that succeeds in offering people better health and longer lives is bound to prevail.

Democracies, however, are obliged to be tolerant of citizens who fall in love with irrational causes. For a long time, many communities in the United States fiercely rejected the fluoridation of drinking water, an intervention that had been clearly proven to reduce tooth decay without any harmful side effects. To prevail over such opposition, those promoting a technological innovation in democracies must offer benefits that a large majority of the people truly covets. To the chagrin of American producers, agricultural uses of genetic engineering have not so far met this test in Europe, and genetically modified foods remain banned there. The well-fed people in these well-to-do democracies have no desire and little tolerance for genetically altered agricultural products because they see no compelling need for "tampering" with nature. Thus, as things stand, the winning lobbies oppose innovation.

This need not be considered as tragic as the advocates of genetically modified foods now claim. [2] In the event of a serious famine resulting from a worldwide food shortage (as opposed to today's famines, which are the consequence of a maldistribution of plentiful food), the weight of political advocacy would instantly shift. (A parallel comes to mind regarding the lobbies that have managed to close down nuclear reactors. In Germany, the Greens recently forced a phase-out of all electricity-producing reactors. So Germany will have to burn environmentally harmful lignite and perhaps import electricity from unsafe nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe. For economists and other rationalizers, it is irritating that, of all people, environmentalists want to abolish clean nuclear energy and prohibit pesticide-free bioengineered foods. For the political philosopher, these quirks are accepted as just one of the smaller costs of democracy.)

The Retirement of Democracies

THE MOST widely and vigorously debated policy issue in America, Europe and Japan is not taxes, defense strategy or foreign policy, but the retirement system. Can and will the government pay for the maintenance of the steadily growing proportion of the population that is of "retirement age", and hence entitled to a lifetime annuity and largely free medical care? And who will be left to care for those with chronic degenerative diseases who cannot care for themselves?

The threshold that establishes the retirement entitlements was set a long time ago, in some European nations more than a hundred years ago. In 1882, for example, the Bismarck...