(another entry from my old blog...)
Pinky: What are we gonna do tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try and take over the world!!!
So last night I saw The Island, which is actually a pretty decent futuristic tale of Eugenics. I think the movie raises a few questions that, while a little different from real cloning dilemmas, are along the same ethical lines....
When I got home from the movie I began reading and ran across an article (apparently I'd missed this in the news) that said scientists are going to create a mouse that has a 100 percent human celled brain. While I may not be able to understand the scientific ins and outs of this, and have been told that the human brain is more complicated than its parts, it does lead me to wonder what makes something human. Is it our human form? Our brain? Our ability to love, feel compassion, and make decisions? What do we do that animals don’t that makes us superior to them? And when does a life become sacred?
If we answer love, compassion, and rational thought, then I feel this is all encompassed in the human mind. Love, after all, is mainly biological. Animals also feel love and devotion, just ask anyone who has ever had a beloved pet or who saw the Jane Goodall documentary that featured the pubescent chimp that died of a broken heart after its mother was killed. But humans would die for one another. This is solely human. Well, not really. Some birds, when the flock is under attack, will fly away from the fleeing flock and distract the predator, usually resulting in its death and the safety of the other birds. This, according to the sociobiological perspective is because biology compels all creatures to not only fight for our survival but for the survival of our species, our genes. All of these functions are a product of evolution and are controlled by the brain.
If then, it is the human brain that makes some one or thing human, then is a person, void of the human mind, nonhuman? If a person has an IQ below 70 does that make them less of a person? If a child is born with a mental handicap that leaves them with the brain function of a dog or chimp, is that child less than human?
If we say the human form makes us human, then would a person, void of legs or arms be considered less than human? When would a physical handicap or deformity be enough to render someone a creature and not a human being?
If an animal with a human brain was created, would it be human? At what point would such a hybrid become human, if ever? And if we cannot easily answer the question of what makes a human life sacred, then perhaps we should be a bit hesitant before turning other creatures into dinner or scientific experiments.
Perhaps we are special because we are more highly evolved. We have thumbs, after all. We are strong and fast and can dominate the world. Therefore everything is here for us to conquer and exploit, simply because we can. Might makes right, doesn’t it? If something is defenseless or less intelligent then you have the right to decide if it should live or die, and what quality of life it deserves. Right? I mean, just ask Hitler….
Note: For my religious viewers, who likely feel that this is an easy question because humans have souls which differentiate them from other animals, I’m gonna have to roll my eyes… What is a soul exactly? Where is it located? Who decided who/what gets a soul anyway? Wasn’t there a time when the Southern church decided that slaves didn’t have souls? Would a half mouse half human hybrid have a soul? How about a clone? Why or why not? There has to be something that all humanity can agree upon that does not bring one group’s specific religious beliefs into play when determining what makes a living thing human, and that human life sacred
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