Miklós Lukács de Pereny (Lima, 1975) is a British-Hungarian-Peruvian scholar working at the intersections of Politics, Philosophy, and Science, Technology & Innovation Studies (STI). He holds a PhD in Management and a MSc in Innovation Management from the University of Manchester, UK, a Master of Development Studies from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from Universidad Mayor de Chile. He is the author of the best-seller, ‘Neo Entities: Technology and Anthropological Change in the 21st Century’ with over 15,000 copies sold in more than 30 countries. He resides between Peru and the United Kingdom.
In 'The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction’ (2016), Harvard University Professor of Biosciences, Henry T. Greely, argues that in the next 20 to 40 years, human reproduction will be outsourced to reproductive technologies. For him, the question is not ‘if’ but when will this shift occur. Greely’s gloomy prediction leads us to a more disturbing potential consequence: those creating, owning, regulating, and supervising these technologies – the new Homo deus – will decide who lives and who does not. The sordid eugenic component related to their rise cannot be understated nor ignored.
Proponents of biotechnologies such as CRISPR and Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) argue that theirs is 'positive’ eugenics because desirable characteristics are voluntarily selected whereas Nazi-style 'negative’ eugenics is coercive and aimed at reducing undesirable traits. This argument is untenable and does not relieve its proponents from their moral burden. What does 'positive characteristics’ mean and who determines them? Why does the absence of some 'positive’ characteristics condemn an otherwise viable human being to death? There is no doubt that ‘positive’ eugenics will lead to the complete instrumentalization of human beings, very much like today’s millions of human embryos, foetuses, and their organs and tissues, that are legally – but unmorally – harvested and sold as ‘specimens’ for questionable research purposes.
Bioethical debates related to assisted suicide, zero Down Syndrome-birth policies, and hormone therapies in minors are the order of the day and their importance and frequency will increase as more scientific and technological ‘advancements’ become known to the public. Towering thinkers such as Leon Kass and Michael Sandel have already raised their concerns regarding human genetic and reproductive manipulation. For the former, the instinctive disgust we feel before an unpleasant situation encompasses and transmits thousands of years of natural wisdom such as, for example, our natural rejection to abortion. Critics of Kass argue that he appeals to emotion but eating a warm plate of manure may well change their sophisticated minds. In 'Against Perfection’ (2007), Michael Sandel believes that the main problem with genetic manipulation is that the human aspiration to perfection will never cease. To avoid the dissolution of our nature in the name of progress, Sandel appeals to the rescue of humility, responsibility and solidarity.
Alongside Kass and Sandel’s position stand the liberal democrat Francis Fukuyama and Jürgen Habermas, one of the main exponents of the Frankfurt School. For Fukuyama we are all equal by nature and genetic manipulation would alter this principle, whereas Habermas warns us about a gradual process of 'self-transformation’ where distinctions between 'positive’ and 'negative’ eugenics would become irrelevant as the artificial inequalities pointed out by Fukuyama arise. Moreover, for the prominent German thinker, a potential transformation of our species would do away with the universal morality expressed in his beloved doctrine of human rights. At the end of the day, what unites these politically dissimilar individuals is not only a series of well-grounded arguments but also a staunch defence of our human nature and condition.
As bioethical debates proliferate, the anthropological war will eclipse the current but exhausted left-right dichotomy. Gradually but inevitably, politics will be defined by bioconservatives who seek to preserve our human nature and condition versus transhumanists who seek to modify it; the anthropological dimension will take precedence over political ideologies and economic models competing to offer happy worlds based on perceived compatibility or incompatibility with individual and collective interests. However, deductive reasoning is not universal but our human nature and condition and this fact stands as the basis of the spontaneous consensus between such politically dissimilar individuals like Kass, Sandel, Fukuyama, and Habermas.
On the basis of empirically supported arguments, the possibility of outsourcing the human reproductive process to technology ceases to be a 'conspiracy theory’ and becomes a feasible reality. Moreover, in light of present and future reproductive applications stemming from converging technologies, it can also be inferred that we are heading towards such a reality. Therefore, it is time to pause political disputes and join forces against those who seek to redefine and reconfigure our species.
