tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post7062388089244423621..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: The Politics of Choice and the Mystifications of "Enhancement" DiscourseDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-38196712886410217962009-07-03T19:47:13.975-07:002009-07-03T19:47:13.975-07:00your writing is extremely convoluted
If you want ...<i>your writing is extremely convoluted</i><br /><br />If you want effortless writing try People magazine.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-83290045267296614232009-07-03T19:32:08.456-07:002009-07-03T19:32:08.456-07:00Dale, thanks for your response to my original ques...Dale, thanks for your response to my original question in the first comment here. I understand your point better.<br /><br />To the other anonymous, it's not so much whether certain technologies are possible or probable or whatever. The point of my question was to understand Dale's concept of 'choice' better. It worked, I understand it better now than I did iyesterday.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-47021980781695464582009-07-03T18:21:29.205-07:002009-07-03T18:21:29.205-07:00Well maybe this will satisfy your curiosity over y...Well maybe this will satisfy your curiosity over your "specific phrasing": your writing is <i>extremely</i> convoluted. Write more clearly and succinctly if you want people to properly understand what you are trying to say.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-58582209260671189062009-07-03T17:17:18.258-07:002009-07-03T17:17:18.258-07:00I agree that talk of "designer babies" a...I agree that talk of "designer babies" and comparably futurological hyperbole is a complete derangement of urgently necessary public deliberation about the actual costs, actual risks, actual benefits to the actual diversity of actually-real stakeholders to actually-possible medicine, both from those who seem to pine for that sort of thing among the so-called "transhumanist-types" and those who seem horrified by that sort of thing among the "bioconservative-types." I explicitly and actually rather insistently said as much in this very post, and also, incidentally, I do so <i>endlessly</i> on this blog and have done well over a decade at this point more generally. I'm curious to know what specific phrasing of mine in the above lead you to the contrary impression, since that is clearly phrasing that is not communicating what I mean for it to do.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-74609902159471399562009-07-03T15:01:07.908-07:002009-07-03T15:01:07.908-07:00Please.
I think you're both getting way too f...Please.<br /><br />I think you're both getting <i>way</i> too far ahead of yourselves.<br /><br />First, we're a loooooong way off from "designer babies" and true "enhancement" genetic engineering. <br /><br />The phenotypical characteristics you refer to when discussing "enhancement" and "customizing" are a combination of many genetic factors that cannot so easily be engineered. It would be like trying to match up one segment of a rubik's cube made of billions of segments. <br /><br />Yes, genetic engineering can address very specific issues through gene splicing/recombinant DNA (such as synthesizing insulin), but that is very different than what you're talking about.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-42679647753551729462009-07-03T00:00:12.176-07:002009-07-03T00:00:12.176-07:00No, I agree with you.
But, again, my point is t...No, I agree with you. <br /><br />But, again, my point is that we need to distinguish on the one hand the uncompromising defense of women's right to choose to end or facilitate any pregnancy as they want for whatever reasons move them to so want, from an awareness on the other hand that people want wrongheaded things sometimes that demand better education, better support, better sensitivity, and so on. <br /><br />Not to put too fine a point on it, I think our society has some utterly fucked up notions about what counts as a flourishing life, and that too much "enhancement" discourse reflects profoundly misguided and parochial valorizations of conventional beauty, conformism, aggressivity, competitiveness, and anti-intellectualism, and that these attitudes too readily play out in the determination of what kinds of people are wanted or not, and so which pregnancies are wanted or not both in prevailing mainstream discourse and in the "enhancement" discourse of futurological extremists. <br /><br />There has to be some way of better registering this awareness, and insisting on the need for education to overcoming the deep impoverishment of such attitudes, but without allowing this to be commandeered by even worse even more reactionary anti-choice politics. <br /><br />As a side note, I will also mention that speaking of "customizing" fetuses also makes me rather nervous -- not because I think it is "unnatural," but because I think it introduces profoundly unrealistic assumptions into the discussion in ways that cause both those who pine for, say, "designer babies" and those who abhor the idea to substitute hyperbole for facts and so skew sensible discussions of actual costs, risks, and benefit of actually-existing ARTs.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-75683333595261852252009-07-02T20:30:10.901-07:002009-07-02T20:30:10.901-07:00Women should have the right to terminate their pre...Women should have the right to terminate their pregnancies for whatever reason, I agree. I think it also follows that a woman should have the right to choose any and all characteristics of that fetus that are or will be within her ability to choose. If she is to carry the fetus, she gets to choose the fetus she wants to carry. <br /><br />Normally she does this by hooking up with the right guy, and rolling the dice. But given certain medical technologies, she may someday have better control of certain characteristics. Doesn't it follow that we would support her right to customize the fetus she alone must carry? <br /><br />I'm not sure from your post whether this is a position you would disapprove of. It sounds strange to some people, and others it sends into fits of rage.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com