Everything is a Trade-Off - Issue #34
When I said yes to Jonathon, I said no to every other man on earth. When I agreed to marry a public servant, I knew a lot of other opportunities were closed to me. But the trade off was good, so I made it. Still the best decision I ever made.
But modern humans don't like trade-offs. They want it all. So, they pretend they aren't, in fact, making a trade-off.
I came across a rather striking example of this just last week when Jonathon came downstairs from his office, eyes wide, and said, "27 isn't science fiction anymore."
27, you may recall, is the novel I'm currently writing. If you missed the newsletter before last, you won't understand what you're about to hear. Read the following quote from that newsletter and you'll be all caught up!
So much so, that when I was tasked with writing a story for one of my college English classes, such a strange, startling story sprang to my mind, and while I wrote it, this music played in my mind. It was a story about some scientists who wanted to end all human sickness and suffering. Their solution was to make clones of people, raise them in a stimulus-free environment so that they would not have emotions, desires, distress, etc… They would be health insurance for real people in the real world. If a person needed a blood transfusion–no problem. If they needed a kidney transplant–no waiting list. If they need bone marrow–no anxious search for a donor. For fifteen years, these clones developed in silence into something not quite human. They did not speak, never heard speaking and did not miss something they did not know. They did not touch, nor were touched, nor missed human warmth and affection–a thing they did not know. They were automatons. And things seemed to go well. Until.
Someone left a door open that should have been shut, and Clone 27 wandered out. Out into warm sunshine, grass, away from the womb his handlers had built for him and out into a world full of sound, beautiful sights, thousands of creatures great and small, tall trees swaying in the breeze. Then a bird landed near him, pecked into the ground, and then flew into the sky and disappeared. 27 was never the same again, and the whole project came to a crashing halt. The sun and wind and a bird undid in ten minutes what humans accomplished in fifteen years. The end. That was my story. I got an A.
He showed me the article below:
The goal of the research is to now create embryo-stage versions of people in order to harvest tissue to be used in transplant treatments meant to lengthen a person’s life and health. Hanna told MIT Technology Review that he has already begun using human cells in hopes of creating embryos as old as 50 days (over 7 weeks — nearly two months old).
According to the Endowment for Human Development, at approximately 49-52 days, an embryo has more elongated fingers, can hiccup, rotate her head, has a heart with four chambers, and has a heart rate of up to 170 beats per minute. She can move her hands, and brain wave activity has begun.
What startled me more than the fact that what I predicted ten years ago was actually happening, was the fact that the people behind this enterprise are firmly denying any trade-off.
Their ultimate goal seems to be quite noble--ending human disease and suffering--just like one of the scientists in my novel who happens to be the mother of one of my main characters. (My cynical side, of course, is saying massive profits are the main goal, but let's just assume the best for now.) In other words, their stated goal is utopia.
But you cannot create utopia as a human without suspending ethics. And that is what this biotech firm is absolutely denying. They claim they can create human life for the purpose of tissue harvesting while remaining ethical.
“In Israel and many other countries, such as the US and the UK, it is legal and we have ethical approval to do this with human-induced pluripotent stem cells,” Hanna said. He considers this to be “an ethical and technical alternative to the use of embryos.”
It is, of course, highly unethical. But highly motivated humans can talk themselves into and out of most anything. They can ignore the obvious and ease pangs of conscience in all kinds of creative ways.
"I hate being right," I told Jonathon.
And I do. This current project is just a few steps away from actually being my novel. So, I guess I better finish it pretty quick before it's no longer science fiction by the time it's published.
The account of the Tower of Babel gives me a lot of hope these days. Humans are quite ingenious. But God can stop our big, smart plans with a twitch of His pinky finger. I don't want my novel to come true. In fact, I'm writing it as a warning, so that we can all resist the newer more sanitized, well-lit versions of depravity.
Let's all pray that He stops this one in its tracks.
Until next time, folks...