Case Western Professor Awarded Grant for ‘Human Enhancement’ Research     5/12/2006
By Cara Cook

CWA and others shocked by NIH backing of transhumanist ideology.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $773,000 grant to Maxwell Mehlman, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, to develop ethical guidelines for the use of humans in “genetic enhancement” research, which seeks to develop human beings who are smarter, stronger and more attractive.

Genetic enhancement, an application of so-called transhumanism, moves beyond treatment to heal or restore so as to develop technology that will perfect and add to normal human functioning.

Transhumanist philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) in 1998. WTA explains that “[t]ranshumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the endpoint of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have.” [Emphasis added.]

The WTA Web site lists Maxwell Mehlman as a scholar who supports transhumanist study, which includes human enhancement research. According to Mehlman, genetic techniques currently used for therapeutic purposes have the potential to be used for human enhancement. One such treatment is erythropoietin, a substance that can boost athletic performance. Mehlman hopes to develop “legitimate, approved ways of conducting research” so that substances like erythropoietin cannot go underground for criminal use.

Yet Mehlman’s concern for who would use these treatments and how they would use them is secondary to the problem of whether such treatments should be created in the first place. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity points out that steroid use to increase human athletic strength is already considered unethical. NIH and Mehlman’s Center for Genetic Research Ethics and Law (CGREAL) are researching with the brazen assumption that remolding human nature is ethically sound.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) is troubled by the NIH’s espousal of the transhumanist and ethically problematic goal of making super-humans out of a “half-baked” humanity.

“The drive to create beyond-perfect humans smacks of past attempts at eugenics, such as sterilizing the ‘unfit’ or breeding a master race,” said Wendy Wright, CWA’s President. “Lost in this obsession is the fact that traits like compassion and humility, and the strong serving the weak, are what make life beautiful.

“Transhumanists won’t pursue these absolutely necessary characteristics, which are best developed, needed and revealed to us by imperfect humans.”

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