Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Remarks on Human Biological Enhancement

2008; University of Kansas; Linguagem: Inglês

10.17161/1808.20018

1942-9258

Henry T. Greely, K. Grace Johnson,

Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations

The area of law and biology, or the biosciences broadly, is an explosively growing area, and is an area that has potentially explosive consequences, both legally and politically. We may call it different things. At Stanford, we have a Center for Law and the Biosciences rather than a Biolaw Center, but our student group involved in this is called BioLaw. And we may focus on somewhat different things. We are hosting a conference in December 2008 on neuro-imaging, pain, and the law in order to explore the impacts of neuroscientific discoveries on the law. But in many different places, people are beginning to realize that our vastly expanded knowledge about biological systems, particularly, but not exclusively, human biological systems, is and will continue to have increasing consequences for the law. Today, I would like to talk about one of those areas—the area of human biological enhancement. I am sure that Dean Agrawal here at Kansas Law is happy to see another former clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom. I know she will enhance the Kansas Law School during her tenure here as Dean, and nobody worries about that because enhancement is generally a good thing. To enhance means to improve or to make better. But when we talk about human biological enhancements, people become much more concerned, and the controversies are much greater. I can sum up the reason in one name: Barry Bonds. People are concerned, not only in the area of sports, but also in the context of broader social and biological areas. People are concerned about intentional modifications of human biology as a result of scientific developments, and that concern has prompted an awful lot of heat. My argument is that thus far it has not prompted as much light as it should