From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>
>A few years ago I went to an ethics conference about gene therapy.
>The comments there, Paul's comments and Greg Stock's & John
>Campbell's work (presented by J. C. @ Extro4) regarding adding a
>Human Artificial Chromosome (HAC) to embyros to allow "activation"
>and/or insertion of genes at later life-points leads me to raise
>the following point.
HAC, what a great idea!!! Wish I had one.......
>The *sticky* point in my mind is we are entering the time when
>treatments that are entirely "enhancements", rather than
>"necessities" are available. If the Extropian principles are those
>which should encourage diversity, minimize tyranny,
>manipulation/control by power bodies/majorities (including parents
>or medical authorities), etc., then it would seem to me that --
>Extropians should be fundamentally opposed to all germline or
>childhood gene therapies that are not essential for the survival
>of the individual (to a time where they an give "informed
>consent").
>Greg & John's work tries to balance on the edge of this by making
>the enhancements "selectable" or "enable-able", but they are still
>making a modification that the child would prefer not to have,
>should they, for whatever reason, grow up to be a human
>"naturalist",
Of course we know what the fundamentalists would say...
"fundamentalists are people who've only read one book"
Brian
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