SEPTEMBER 2000

GENETICS

By Michael Bennett
Special to the Florida State Times

Who should be born? How intelligent should they be? How strong, healthy and socially adept? Should other species' parts or traits be introduced into humans?

Such fantastic questions are becoming more real. Genetic research is giving us biological options radically different from those of the present day.

In the way that physics was for the last 10 decades, and chemistry for the 10 before that, genetics is poised to be the most crucial branch of science in the 21st century. And a growing crowd of thinkers wonders if the safety valve of ethics is not a little weak.

Florida State scholars in several disciplines - including biology, law and religion - are attempting to address the new ethics frontier. An early example is a joint course taught by law and religion professors.

Among Florida State's genetics researchers are some who hope their students will challenge the ethics questions more than they have so far.

That number includes Lloyd Epstein, a geneticist, who reminds his classes that "all life that we know of on Earth uses the same basic genetic systems."

Because the systems are the same, the growing understanding of even the simplest forms can raise frightening questions about what is possible for humans.
Current research on roundworms, for example, indicates that a simple change in genetic make-up decides whether a worm eats alone or in groups. Human actions that seem equally voluntary may also turn out to be genetically predetermined, or at least influenced.

Should we feel free to make such a simple change in the human genetic makeup, when humans desire it?

As the possibilities multiply, someone - from law, religion or combined fields - will need to influence the guidelines for choosing whether and how to act.

"Eventually, we may find ourselves judging the value of lives worth living and those not worth living," says Lois Shepherd, associate professor at Florida State's College of Law, who studies the implications of applied genetics for liberty. The more technological powers we have - to be rid of suffering through medicine for example - the more we are regulated by laws seeking to protect us or guarantee us the relief we want.

"Traditionally, liberty rights do not equal avoidance of suffering," she said. "In law, liberty is a leave-me-alone kind of thing, as opposed to help-me kind of thing. A growing assumption seems to be that technology should help us be free."

Doctors are headed for mud-dy waters, she thinks: "Someone will have to balance costs and benefits. There will be trade-offs and some very tricky balancing."

Early testing will one day show that a fertilized egg that was supposed to be a little Einstein is actually going to be a Forrest Gump. Under pressure to deliver a tailored baby, the doctor, mother and father may think long and hard about whether to abort.

Now the long-held American obsession with individualism may be turning into a quest for sameness. Medical advances catalogue numerous "defects" which would once have been chalked up to personal traits or eccentricities. Consider depression, juvenile rowdiness or phobias. We are for the first time becoming capable of removing these less desirable characteristics, and for every person who "turns off" a gene with potentially deadly effects, there will be some who manipulate their body chemistry for purely cosmetic effects. Many can be spared death by cancer. Many can look like models.

"I'm worried that we're beginning to see children as a product that the mother produces, a product that should be perfect," Shepherd said.

There is a paradox, she points out, in our medical policies that stress the eradication of suffering and the quest of standardization.

"Saving premature babies and the assimilation of citizens formerly known as the 'handicapped' are counter to our detection of genetic anomalies and the subsequent abortion of fetuses," she said. "Many of the premature babies actually have serious disabilities. Our compassion is clear, but it seems to be played out in conflicting ways."

Shepherd suggests that "we will begin making decisions which we don't have to make."

She uses the story of William Styron's novel, "Sophie's Choice," to illuminate our ethical predicament. The crux of the story comes when a mother is forced to decide which of her children will be killed. Shepherd argues that by choosing, the mother forfeited her ethical option of not partaking in the horrendous act.

Questions of who should live and who should not - or which shortcomings should be repaired and which should not - are heard in religious debate, where some argue that determining the traits of infants before they are born is an act reserved for God.

In the department of religion, Assistant Professor Aline Kalbian - working at the intersection of religion, ethics and feminism - sees a potential devaluation of human experience and its effects on character.

"There is real possibility for a misleading understanding of human development," she said. "What of environments and relationships? What of morality and the explaining away of virtues?"

In her opinion, religion and religious ethics could play a powerful role in the debate over genetics and biotechnology.

Shepherd and Kalbian have come together in an attempt to help found a university institute devoted to bio-ethics. This fall they plan to co-teach an ethics course.

"A law school/arts and sciences cross-over class will provide wonderful interaction," Kalbian said. "And if we can get this new institute going, I think it will be great for students."

It may come as a relief to the scientists who teach genetics.

"No student has questioned the theories raised in the two genetics classes I teach each year, not once, graduate or undergraduate," Epstein said. "It sort of bothers me. Religious ideas are strongly held in many people, presumably in my students, but they are not wanting to discuss them."

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